Healthcare Traveler – September, 2010

You've invested—and continue to invest—time, money, and energy into maintaining your clinical expertise. Staying on top of the latest research in your field, engaging in continuing education activities, and networking with colleagues to keep abreast of changes in your profession are all examples of things you do that demonstrate how seriously you take your career.

These types of activities, coupled with being the best provider of patient care you know how to be, help you develop and maintain a sterling reputation—one that, naturally, you want to protect. You can avoid putting your professional standing at risk as a traveler by working with only the highest-quality, most reputable agencies in the industry.

You probably hadn't worked in the hospital setting for more than a week before you first heard of The Joint Commission (formerly JCAHO, and before that JCAH). Considered the "gold standard" in evaluating healthcare organizations for quality and patient safety, The Joint Commission surveys and accredits hospitals and other healthcare entities, including staffing companies. By choosing to work with agencies that have voluntarily put themselves under The Joint Commission's microscope, you can rest assured you are representing quality when you go out into the field to provide patient care. Here are six direct benefits of working with staffing companies that are Joint Commission-certified.

1. Taking quality seriously. Staffing agencies are not required to undergo the scrutiny of an on-site survey, during which every aspect of their business is examined. The ones who pay for this privilege do so, in part, to make sure they are operating in alignment with the highest national standards in the industry. The Joint Commission survey process for staffing agencies includes an evaluation of leadership, human resource management, performance measurement and continuous improvement, and information management.

2. In good company. Certified agencies have policies and procedures in place that require them to hold their traveling professionals—you and your peers—to extremely high standards. This means that when you're out in the field, whether that’s in a hospital or clinic setting, you are a member of a team that has been thoroughly evaluated and declared fit for duty in terms of education, training, expertise, professionalism, and ethics.

3. Reduced liability risk. An agency that has gone to the effort to become certified will not send you to work in an organization that does not also take quality care seriously. This means you'll be practicing in institutions that have systems in place to ensure patient safety and that have solid risk management and quality improvement programs in place. This is good for healthcare organizations, good for patients, and good for you.

4. More opportunities. Hospitals view agencies with The Joint Commission's seal of approval as being held to the same high standards that the hospitals themselves are. Increasingly, healthcare organizations are making it a policy to contract exclusively with staffing companies that are certified. After all, why would a hospital put its certification and reputation at risk by allowing anyone not up to professional standards take care of patients in their institution?

5. Better pay. Certified staffing agencies tend to land more established and better paying clients, which may trickle down to a bigger paycheck for you—and that's never a bad thing.

6. A stable organization. Staffing companies come and go. Those that plan to be around to work with you over the long term—while your career as a traveler grows and changes—are probably Joint Commission-certified. Because it takes time to develop a relationship with agency recruiters, it makes sense to do so with companies that will be there for you tomorrow, next year, and 20 years from now.

To find out more about how The Joint Commission surveys and accredits staffing agencies, visit jointcommission.org and click on Certification Programs. To find an agency that is Joint Commission-certified, visit the National Association of Travel Healthcare Organizations at natho.org.HT