Travel

#The Best Travel Nursing Companies - 2014 - BluePipes Blog

Travel nurses are always on the hunt for the best travel nursing companies. This is understandable given the central role that companies play in a travel nurse s career. In this blog post we ll compare the Top Company lists compiled by the two most commonly relied upon resources for finding the best companies, Travel Nursing Central  (TNC) and Highway Hypodermics .

This blog post was written in 2014. While it is still highly useful, you may also want to review our blog post on the best travel nursing companies for 2015 .

Background on the best travel nursing company lists

Both TNC and Highway Hypodermics compile an annual list of the best companies. Each service utilizes a different formula to rank companies. TNC s formula is largely based on the company ratings the service collects. Ratings received over the most recent year are weighted higher than those from previous years and the total number of ratings entered is also weighted. To qualify, an agency must have a website, must have received more than 15 ratings and must have been rated by a traveler who had worked for the agency in the last three months.

Highway Hypodermics scores agencies in two categories. First, agencies are scored on the benefits they provide. The service asks 21 benefits based questions and allots 1 point for each benefit provided by a company. For example, one question asks if the company provides professional liability insurance. Answering yes gets the agency a point for that benefit.  Second, agencies receive a score based on the ratings the service has collected for the agency. The two scores are combined and the agencies are ranked from highest to lowest score.

The list of the top companies provided by TNC is divided into 3 tiers (Gold, Silver, and Bronze) with 4 companies in each tier for a total of 12 companies. Highway Hypodermics provides a top 10 list of agencies and they extend the list to include an additional 10 companies they refer to as Honorable Mentions. Here is a side-by-side comparison of the lists for 2014 with the top two honorable mentions added to Highway Hypodermics list so we have a straight comparison:

 Side-by-side comparison of the best travel nursing company lists