Staffing company specializes in bringing qualified nurses from India to the U.S.
Honesty, integrity, caring and sharing are the four principles that guide GlobeMed Resources. With offices in India, Nepal, the United Kingdom and headquartered in Virginia, GlobeMed is an organization that focuses on matching qualified internationally trained nurses to vacant jobs in the United States. But placing nurses in open health care positions is only a part of GlobeMeds mission.
“We attempt to treat nurses like they are members of our family,” says GlobeMed Resources president Paul Nimitz. “We talk with them about their dreams, wants and desires and try to make them come true.” The process to filling vacant jobs in the U.S. with internationally trained nurses takes roughly a year, but the nurse starts long before that with preparation and testing to meet the U.S. Visa and licensing requirements.
The process begins in one of GlobeMeds international offices. Staffed with full-time employees not contract workers or independent agents each office has nurses, administrators, recruiters and document specialists that work with the most qualified nurses in each region. By eliminating contract employees and providing a full-time support staff, GlobeMed is able to be more credible in an industry so fraught with deceptive organizations and independent agents.
GlobeMed opened its first office in India in early 2002 and has been well received by the Indian community. In November 2002, it was the first United States company to be endorsed by the government of India for U.S. nurse recruitment. Nimitz says the government supports the export of nursing jobs because of the abundance of nurses and the fact that the nurses are able earn enough to support themselves while sending some funds home to help their families.
The average GlobeMed nurse has about five years of clinical experience with two years being the minimum experience represented. About fifteen percent of the nurses have experience working in the Middle East or the United Kingdom. Something Nimitz says is a good experience for nurses because it makes their transition to U.S. hospital practices easier.
GlobeMed staff members work with nurses throughout the entire testing and immigration process. They help nurses gather documentation, make sure all qualifying exams are completed and talk with each nurse about job opportunities across the country. Nurses who accept job offers from a GlobeMed client agree to a three-year commitment in turn for the opportunity of employment.
“One thing that makes us unique is no one is forced to go anywhere they dont want to go. We put the power in the hands of the nurses and it results in better job satisfaction and retention,” Nimitz says. If a nurse is adamant about wanting a job in Florida and one is not available, it will be her decision to request submission to a medical facility in another area or wait until a job opens up in their preferred region. Once a nurse is matched with a job, GlobeMed assists with arranging travel, coordinates temporary housing on arrival and makes sure each nurse gets acclimated to the new environment. This includes everything from acquiring a Social Security card, opening a bank account, shopping, understanding public transportation and initial hospital orientation. GlobeMed has a major initiative named GlobeMed Resources Arrival and Nurse Delivery (GRAND) that consist of 110 separate steps for nurse assimilation to the hospital and community. “Its a philosophy of caring. Nurses are at the top our organization chart and if we can make them successful we all are winners.”
And it must be working. Currently GlobeMed works with more than 50 hospitals around the United States and is exclusively representing over 2,300 nurses. The average age of a nurse in the United States is now 46 and some 60 percent of these nurses are expected to retire in the next 10 years. Combine this with the number of Baby Boomers who are living longer and requiring care, and the U.S. shortage is expected to reach 900,000 jobs by the year 2020. And the nursing shortage is being felt all over the world, not just in the U.S.
With such significant staffing challenges on the horizon, hospitals and health care organizations must take a proactive approach in order to keep up with demand. Nimitz says there are four strategies that seem to work: continue to invest in the training of new nurses, focus on staff retention, attract back to the workplace those that have left nursing and recruit from a new labor pool that offers an abundance of talent. This last strategy can offer phenomenal talent, while slowing the “churn” of local talent who jump from hospital to hospital for the latest and best offer.
As the only English-speaking country in the world with an abundance of nurses, India is an excellent source of young and energetic talent who are educated in English. Nimitz says the GlobeMed nurses are highly talented, eager to learn and willing to work the hard-to-staff evening and night shifts. They are also anxious to begin the “American dream”.
“For them, nursing is the key to opportunity,” Nimitz says. And GlobeMed is there to help them find it.
