The days of brick-and-mortar nurse staffing agencies packed with recruiters in cubicles, paperwork piles, ringing phones, and noisy fax machines in the background are mostly a thing of the past.
Across industries, leaders are turning to technology for solutions, and healthcare facilities are no different.
Enter nurse staffing platforms.
What is a nurse staffing platform?
Nurse staffing platforms replace the noise and cumbersome bureaucracy of middleman staffing agencies. Elegantly designed website platforms leverage technology with algorithms and proprietary AI systems to interface between healthcare clinicians and the facilities that want to put them to work.
According to Precedence Research, in 2024, the healthcare staffing market in the U.S. was valued at USD 19.47 billion and is projected to expand to USD 40.16 billion by 2034.
This growth means there are multiple players in the healthcare staffing space, but not all platforms are created equal.
What are the 5 best nurse staffing platforms?
Here is a look at the top twelve nurse staffing platforms on the U.S. market today, with a deeper look at the five best options.
1. Nursa
Nursa is a per diem staffing platform that connects healthcare facilities with local clinicians to solve short-term staffing needs.
Key features
Nurses and other healthcare workers are contracted through the platform on a shift-by-shift basis, which allows facilities across the U.S. to customize staffing ratios to their needs in real time.
The platform has several features that support cost efficiency, allow facility control, and streamline the contracting process. Here are four favorites:
- Customization: The platform allows facilities to customize screening and credential lists to health systems, facility types, and department standards.
- Integration: It can be synchronized with existing workforce management systems to centralize scheduling and timekeeping operations. Account holders can delegate app administration to trusted team members for ease of use.
- Responsiveness: Push notifications and real-time updates ensure a quick turnaround for facilities to fill shifts. The app also provides facilities with options for auto-scheduling “favorited” clinicians.
- Administrative support: Nursa takes care of background checks and license verification.
Pricing
Nursa’s ranking on this list is perhaps most deserved due to its pricing strategy: Facilities only pay for hours worked. There are no start-up fees, subscription fees, extra fees, hire-away fees, or contract minimums. Facilities also have total control over shift pricing.
Support
Nursa Support is available via web chat seven days a week, from 6:00 a.m. (MT) to 10 p.m. (MT). Additionally, the platform provides on-the-ground support with local operations team members who help facilities with specific staffing situations.
Pros and cons
Unlike many of its competitors in the digital staffing space, Nursa focuses on providing per diem healthcare staffing solutions for individual shifts. This means it doesn’t offer recruitment services for permanent positions and typically isn’t used for long-term placements.
Interestingly, because it explicitly does not charge hire-away fees, some facilities use the platform as a “tryout” for clinicians before hiring them.
2. SnapCare
SnapCare is a cloud-based platform that uses AI to drive its nurse staffing software for shift optimization, talent matching, data analytics, and what it calls “cost-effective shift escalation.”
Key features
The platform’s key features invest heavily in offering a breadth of tools and optimization. Here are three favorites in the industry:
- Shift escalation: SnapCare’s shift escalation strategy focuses on helping facilities optimize the scheduling of internal staff first and escalate to outside contracted help only when necessary.
- Recruitment: Additionally, SnapCare offers talent acquisition for permanent placements, travel nursing contracts, PRN nursing jobs, and short-term placements.
- Supplier management: The platform’s Managed Services Provider option consolidates billing and compliance with suppliers.
Pricing
According to SnapCare’s Transparent Pricing Promise, the platform will disclose clinician pay rates, travel costs, and a standard burden rate pay that covers clinician benefits and payroll taxes. Additional fees for recruiting, credentialing, and employing clinicians will also be applied.
The platform’s Permanent Placement Services have a fixed fee of 15 percent, while the Managed Services Provider fees are reportedly 20 percent below competitors.
Support
The platform offers customer support via call, text, or web form submission. SnapCare support is available 24/7.
Pros and cons
This platform offers a broad scope of staffing solutions for facilities. That said, the compounded costs of clinicians and the rest of its tools might make facilities wary of using the platform to its fullest capabilities.
3. NurseIO
NurseIO is the healthcare staffing company behind the platform and tool suite NurseIO X.
Key features
NurseIO X has four key features:
- Crunch: This feature shows facilities how much they can expect to spend so they can accurately calculate spending and savings.
- Pick: The pick feature showcases the platform’s proprietary AI system, Smart Shift, which factors in clinicians’ choices to fill shifts.
- Ella: Facilities can use the AI scheduling assistant, Ella, to book shifts via SMS text.
- Tag: Tag is the platform’s work hours tracking system to make labor auditing and accounting easier.
Pricing
Shift pricing for NurseIO X is transparent. The company invoices show facilities the rate the healthcare clinician will earn for the shift and the agency fee, which is a single flat fee.
Support
Customer support is available via chat on the web platform and in the app.
Pros and cons
The platform guarantees facilities that it can help them save 25 percent with its suite of tools and staffing solutions. However, it’s unclear how it delivers on that promise. Furthermore, it’s invested heavily in AI-powered features, but clarity is lacking on how much human input and support is available.
4. IntelyCare
IntelyCare’s platform provides healthcare staffing support to facilities nationwide for permanent placements, travel assignments, per diem jobs, and short-term local nursing contracts.
Key features
IntelyCare’s suite of tools includes strategies for short- and long-term staffing needs, as well as nurse training:
- IntelyPros: This feature provides facilities with the option for set schedules and fixed rates on temporary local contracts.
- Block Booking: Facilities can post recurring shifts in blocks for clinician consistency.
- Nursing job board: Facilities can use the platform’s job board to post permanent position openings.
- IntelyEdu: IntelyCare offers accredited training courses so facilities can train their nursing staff.
Pricing
IntelyCare’s pricing strategy is subscription based, with a four-day free trial. Three packages set a different monthly rate starting at $299 per month, and the fourth offers custom pricing. It is unclear if the subscription fees for the packages cover the costs of clinician payment.
Support
The platform offers a 1-800 number for customers to speak with local representatives.
Pros and cons
IntelyCare’s Block Booking feature may appeal to clinicians who are looking for reliability in contract work, which may improve fill rates.
Three of the four subscription packages allow for only three or fewer job postings per month, making them obsolete for any facility looking for frequent short-term solutions. This makes the customization package the more practical option for said facilities. However, its pricing structure is not disclosed on the website.
5. Clipboard Health
Clipboard Health is a two-sided staffing platform for facilities and healthcare professionals to connect for open shifts.
Key features
Clipboard Health has some features unique from its competitors, including the following:
- Geo-tracking: The app tracks the contracted clinician on their way to the shift and throughout the duration of the shift.
- Automatic reposting: If a last-minute cancellation or no-show occurs on a shift, the platform will automatically repost it as an urgent shift.
- Rate negotiation: Clinicians can propose a new rate for a shift and negotiate with the facility before agreeing to pick up a shift.
Pricing
The platform typically does not charge additional fees for posting shifts or hiring clinicians directly. However, the platform charges a fee if a facility boosts the shift rate to attract more talent.
Support
The platform says it offers personalized help. It also has a library of “Help” articles for facilities and a web form for questions and concerns.
Pros and cons
The rate negotiation feature may be popular with clinicians. This feature could help attract talent and fill shifts. However, it may drag out the process and leave facilities frustrated with budgeting.
While the geo-tracking function could provide transparency for facilities to confirm timekeeping, it may prove unpopular with clinicians.
Additional healthcare staffing platforms and agencies
Other healthcare companies prominent in the mix include the following:
6. ShiftMed: ShiftMed offers on-demand nurse staffing and a customizable mobile app, as well as digital MSP services.
7. Medely: Medely is an app that integrates talent acquisition and internal resource management into one place.
8. ESHYFT: This app focuses on sourcing nursing clinicians for long-term care facilities.
9. AMN Healthcare: AMN Healthcare is a staffing agency that sources healthcare talent for temporary, short-term, and permanent placements.
10. Aya Healthcare: This nurse staffing agency offers travel nurse contracts, permanent placements, and local per diem staffing.
11. FlexCare: This staffing agency connects healthcare clinicians with travel contracts.
12. Vivian: Vivian helps facilities and staffing agencies source healthcare clinicians for short-term, per diem, and travel contracts, as well as permanent placements.
Diversifying staffing strategies is more important than ever
The staffing needs of each healthcare facility are as unique as they are complex. As such, facility managers need solutions that offer the ability to customize, adapt, augment, and reduce in order to align with changing staffing needs.
The only way forward is to leverage technological tools and platforms that have changed the healthcare staffing landscape and ensure patient care continues uninterrupted.
