Travel nurses and travel therapists have the best of both worlds; a great career that allows them to help others while earning top pay and a chance to travel and work at different locations throughout the United States. As a travel nurse or travel therapist, you get a lot of perks and benefits with each assignment, such as free private furnished housing, tax advantage plan, matched 401 (k) plan, free group health, dental and life insurance, and bonuses!

Now, in addition to the regular referral bonus American Traveler offers our nurses and therapists, we are also offering a limited time referral bonus of $1,000.

We are looking for:

• RNs in the following specialties: OR, L&D, PICU or NICU
• Allied: Physical Therapists and Occupational Therapists

Travel nurse jobs give R.N.s the distinct advantage of exposure to a wide variety of charting systems, familiarizing many with what has today become a popular practice in surgical jobs: making checklists. Surgical checklists are creating a sizeable dip in errors and patient mortality—and it’s not just their content changing patient outcomes and hospital efficiency for the better—it’s also the teamwork required from everyone on the surgical team committed to seeing checklists work.

Borrowing a strategy from the aviation industry, healthcare is also using teamwork and briefings, to improve safety and efficiency during operations. Surgical checklists are a component in this, so effective they are becoming a new standard in healthcare; even the most highly regarded US hospitals are improving thanks to checklists.

Surgical checklists document every step of a patient’s surgery and hospitalization, from admission to discharge, and are reducing the risk of dying after surgery and suffering other types of complications. In one study that addressed a pool of 7,600 patients, surgical checklists decreased mortality by half and morbidity by one-third; these statistics were generated in six different Netherlands hospitals, on 11 separate checklists comprised of about 100 items each.

Summary of a Surgical Checklist

Surgical lists deal with pre-operative care, the operating room itself, Recovery, ICU and post-operative care, specifically with issues like:

• Ensuring blood is available during surgery
• Double-checking that surgeons operate on the correct site
• Ensuring the staff in the recovery ward or ICU are clear on how to take care of the patient after surgery
• Medication administration is being handled with speed and accuracy
• Deciding when a patient should be allowed to eat again
• Giving the right antibiotics before surgery

Healthcare Employers Look Toward Travel Nurses as Flexible Educators, Invaluable in Helping Train Permanent Staff in New Charting Systems

Since travel nursing jobs employ healthcare professionals in A-list facilities where cutting edge technologies are in use, they must adapt and learn quickly. With staff that has more than risen to the challenge, teaching hospitals rely on travel nurses to help permanent staff transition more seamlessly into new patient charting systems.

Clinical Coordinator Deb Bacurin is among the fray who appreciates great nursing staff and says, “when it comes to patient charting, travel nurses are every bit as conscientious as permanent nursing staff, as well as totally up-to-speed on computerized charting systems. When new systems are introduced on the scene, travel nurses view it, not as a burden, but as an opportunity to enhance their nursing skills set.”

At American Traveler, You Can Check “Job Search” Off Your List

If you’re a qualified operating room nurse looking for a top paying surgical job and generous benefits package, apply online at American Traveler ASAP! It’s your best bet for rapid career growth, as well as limitless exposure to emerging trends in healthcare. Together we set the benchmarks that better protect our patients. Our clients are largely made up of hospitals named as the nation’s best in U.S. News & World Report. Peruse our nationwide med/surg jobs, to see what we mean—not only is an exciting travel nurse job waiting to be filled, but patients are waiting for your skilled and efficient touch!

Footnote: OR nurses working in med/surg jobs with an avid interest in reading the latest on protecting themselves from medical errors can visit The Agency for HealthCare Research and Policy for tips.

According to a study based on surgical teams from hospitals around the country, safety techniques—similar to ones used by the aviation industry—cut death rates from surgery by an astounding 18%. This is compelling news for those in operating room nurse jobs and other healthcare professionals in med surg jobs, interested in the benefits of teamwork.

Known as “briefings” in the airline industry, the meetings are conducted before and after each flight, so that crews can anticipate and prepare for potential and/or future safety hazards. In a healthcare setting, “briefings” aided surgical teams in making important discoveries about the specifics of each patient’s illness or condition prior to and after each surgical procedure.

Checklists are a Must for Team Building in Surgical jobs

The aviation industry doesn’t like surprises and either should operating room nurses and professionals in med/surg jobs. So what kinds of tactics are being used to eliminate surprises, and strengthen professional relationships among the operating room team?

• Operating room nurses are asked (to learn) to recognize red flags
• Med surg and OR nurses are expected to challenge colleagues should safety risks come up
• Operating room nurses are expected to develop presurgical checklists

That last item on the bullet list resonated the most among med/surg and operating room nurses when research on check-lists appeared in a top selling book by Peter Pronovost, a doctor and safety advocate who wrote, Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals; proved using a checklist could prevent half of all surgical deaths.

In Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals, Dr. Pronovost raises the point that surgery and anesthesiology have a long-standing habit of focusing on the technical; they often fail to realize that some of the harm done in surgery is happening because of teamwork failure. Healthcare professionals in surgical jobs are well on their way to achieving goals from Pronovost’s study by encouraging operating room nurses to keep an accurate and unambiguous medical chart on every patient.

Even in the advent of Health IT, when computers keep electronic files on patients, nurses must remember to “double-check” and adopt the mantra: “If you didn’t chart it, it didn’t get done.”

America’s Top Hospitals Practice Many Different Tactics that Decrease Patient Mortality

At American Traveler we staff healthcare talent—which include travel nurses qualified in a wide range of specialties, from operating room and surgical jobs to other veins of graduate nursing—in hospitals consistently ranked by U.S. News & World Report. Awarded The Joint Commission Certification, our staffing agency works with hospitals that are committed to excellence in high quality patient care—continuously improving levels of service. Our travel nurses in med surg and operating room jobs can expect to work in facilities with lower nurse to patient ratios and enjoy a higher morale that put travel nurses on track to landing the ultimate travel nurse job; call us at 800-884-8788 or apply online today to see what we’re talking about!

Surgery used to present two options for doctors and their patients: a large open incision or laparoscopy; in the case of the later, surgery was limited to a handful of simple procedures, but now there’s an alternative that can be used in a wide variety of complex surgeries—and the fun part? It looks a little like a video game in an arcade.

What are we talking about? The da Vinci® Surgical System, a hot topic in the medical community, and one that encourages Med/surg nurses to advance their education on medical robotics; just like their colleagues in OR nursing jobs, are encouraged to learn everything they can to better assist post-op patients.

If you fall under the OR nurse jobs or Med/Surg category, consider the da Vinci a buzz-word in your continuing education as a nursing caregiver. Chances are you’ll concur with studies on the positive clinical outcomes (like reduced pain) of this high tech surgery and understand why more and more hospitals are welcoming da Vinci in.

Created by the Intuitive Surgical company and named after Leonardo da Vinci for its precision in anatomy and 3-D images reminiscent of his drawings, the da Vinci’s minimally invasive approach is radically changing patient experiences and OR nurse jobs for the better. See it in action by watching the video below.

The da Vinci is comprised of 3 critical parts: the console, where the surgeon sits, looking through 2 eye holes at a 3-D image of the surgical field; a patient side-cart featuring 3 to 4 robotic arms that act as scalpel, scissors, sutures and endoscpic camera; and, finally, The Vision System, where operating images are enhanced, refined, and optimized to better guide the surgeon.

The cost of this sophisticated machinery—1.3 million—has yet to slow sales, now past the $600 million mark. Though da Vinci surgeries take longer than laparoscopy, this robotic technique creates less physical stress for the surgeon, who doesn’t have to stand, use long-shafted hand-held instruments or trouble him/herself to look up and away at a 2D video monitor.

The da Vinci, eliminates the need for the surgeon to rely on a patient-side assistant to steady the camera on target anatomy—it’s all right there in the console—and holds certain advantages over traditional surgery as well; the surgeon is spared from X-ray exposure that forces some in surgical careers into early retirement.

And further cause for those in Med/Surg nursing jobs and OR nurse jobs to pay attention to the future of medical robotics?

Patient outcomes are improved by shorter hospital stays and faster return to normal activities. The use of da Vinci also includes the unprecedented benefit of avoiding blood transfusions associated with surgery.

Regardless of your medical specialty, it’s always a good idea to stay current on the latest medical trends. Med/Surg nurses and those in OR nursing jobs are sure to notice a change in the operating room landscape, as more and more procedures are mastered by medical robotics; the da Vinci website’s FDA page lists every surgery it performs, but here’s a sneak peek:

• Radical prostatectomy
• Gastric bypass
• Hysterectomy
• Myomectomy
• Sacrocolpopexy
• Adrenalectomy
• Splenectomy
• Bowel resection
• Cardiac tissue ablation & Mitral valve repair

The da Vinci’s goal is to make surgical careers and OR nursing jobs easier by providing surgeons with superior visualization, enhanced dexterity, and, last but not least, greater precision and ergonomic comfort. OR nurse jobs just got more “cutting” edge!

• Location: Washington, DC
• Day – D/N Rotating 8 Hour Shift
• Length: 9 Weeks

Call 800-884-8788 or Apply Online Now

RN Operating Room Job

• Location: Lebanon, NH
• Day – Variable10 11:00 AM – 9:00 PM
• Length: 13 Weeks

Call 800-884-8788 or Apply Online Now