One Nurse at a Time: Building Relationships in Healthcare Staffing

Intro  

Welcome to another edition of inspired stories where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from their successes, how they’ve overcome adversity, and explore current challenges they’re facing.

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Anthony Codispoti: Welcome to another edition of the inspired stories

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Anthony Codispoti: cast where leaders share their experiences. So we can learn from their successes and be inspired by how they’ve overcome adversity.

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Anthony Codispoti: My name is Anthony Cotespode, and today’s guest is Michael Darby, co-owner of nurses. Direct a family owned business that provides nursing services directly to healthcare facilities in the State of Louisiana. In fact, they were one of the 1st nurse staffing agencies in Louisiana. They staff hospitals at home, private duty locations, and other healthcare facilities with nurses who provide a high quality of patient care.

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Anthony Codispoti: Their mission is to provide staffing services in a manner that is tailored to the needs of each client, and to do so in a manner that is personal, courteous, and professional.

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Anthony Codispoti: You can find their website at nursesdirectus. Now, before we get into all that good stuff, today’s episode is brought to you by my company. Addback benefits agency, where we offer very specific and unique employee benefits that are both great for your team and fiscally optimized for your bottom line.

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Anthony Codispoti: One recent client was able to add over $900 per employee per year in extra cash flow. By implementing one of our programs. Results vary for each company, and some organizations may not be eligible to find out if your company qualifies contact us today at Addbackbenefitsagency com.

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Anthony Codispoti: Now back to our guest today the co-owner of nurses direct. Michael Darby, I appreciate you making the time to share your story today.

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Nurses Direct: Thank you. Appreciate you having me.

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Anthony Codispoti: So let’s go to the origin. How did nurses direct 1st get started? I see that you’re an Rn. Did that happen? Well, in advance of starting the company, or sort of, in conjunction with.

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Nurses Direct: Well, no, that that actually happened. Well, in advance.

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Nurses Direct: I kind of started at the bottom.

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Nurses Direct: I I worked my way up. I was what they call an Lp. And a licensed practical nurse. My mom was a nurse for 40 something years kind of inspired me. I just love helping people and caring for people, and the medicine interests me a lot.

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Nurses Direct: So I went in, and I

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Nurses Direct: I obtained my Lpn at a technical school in in in Appaloosas, Louisiana, and then from there I worked at a local hospital

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Nurses Direct: in this little town of Appaloosas, Louisiana, and then they helped and paid

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Nurses Direct: for my schooling for me to go back to school. I’d work every weekend, and I received my

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Nurses Direct: my registered nurses degree from Lsu E in Unis. I received my associates degree from there and then. From there I went back and took other classes to pursue my my bachelors, and then I opened a nur. I opened a nursing agency, but that was 3.rd About

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Nurses Direct: 12 years after starting my nursing career.

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Anthony Codispoti: So 12 years after you started your nursing careers when you started your staffing agency? And was that nurses direct, or was there one that came before it.

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Nurses Direct: The one before it was called Nurse Corps, CORP. S. Nurse Corps, kind of like marine Corps, and our our vision was like, you know, the last to know the 1st to go, and then, you know, they’d call us whenever they needed someone in the middle of the night. So. But the problem with that was the name kind of threw us for a a curve, because they would say, Nurse, corpse instead of core.

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Anthony Codispoti: Thank you.

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Nurses Direct: Goes over to the whale.

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Anthony Codispoti: That’s sending the wrong message in your marketing.

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Nurses Direct: Agree. Agree we we did well with that, and but anyhow, and here we are today. Nurses direct. So.

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Anthony Codispoti: And so when when did nurses direct get started? What year was that.

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Nurses Direct: Almost 9 years now, so I don’t know that I’d have to look on the Secretary of State. But about 9 years ago, and prior to that we had Nurse Core. That was around 2,000 in in 1,999 2,000 was the concept we started from there.

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Nurses Direct: and sound.

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Anthony Codispoti: Why, in 2,000 get started in in nurse staffing. What did you see that made you think there’s an opportunity? There’s an unfilled need here.

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Nurses Direct: Well, my business partner, Mark Savoy. He’s a nurse also. He’s

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Nurses Direct: He’s like 1213 years older than I am. It’s kind of an ironic story. I’ll just give it to you how in kind of in the the short version, my grandfather is still living. He’s 98 years old, Mark Savoy, my business partner, that I’m in business with today. His stepfather was a barber, and they he and my grandfather went to school together. So every time I would go to bring my elderly grandfather to get a haircut. 2 or 3 times.

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Nurses Direct: Mr. Bim, which was Mark Savoy’s stepfather, would say, you know my stepson’s in a nur. A nursing agency. He! He! You need to speak to him and me. I was like, no, I had been worked my way up at the hospital. I was a department head. I had a Monday through Friday job. I worked. I lived 2 blocks from the hospital. I’d walk to work. I mean, I loved it, and I and I was salaried. So

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Nurses Direct: I said, I I was thinking from the concept of working agency working go on work supplemental shifts. Well, about the second or 3rd time I go

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Nurses Direct: he. He happened to call his his stepson, and Mark shows up, he said, well, how would you like to own your own nursing agency? I said, Well, okay, how much of an investment would that be? He said. Nothing. I will float the payroll. I’ll help you. Do you know whatever money it costs? I just need you to get out there and recruit facilities and nurses for me, so that we can, staff and he. He had been in the industry quite some time by then, and I I mean

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Nurses Direct: it was known there was a nursing shortage. This was back, like, I say, in the late nineties, I you know. So they I said, Well, yeah, there seems like there’s a need for that, and so I I gave it a try, and

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Nurses Direct: you know, 4, 5 months later I was making more money doing staffing, but I mean, look, I was hustling every day, and

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Nurses Direct: after, I think almost 18 months or so, I was able to quit my job as a department head and pursue this full time.

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Anthony Codispoti: So Market had a background in Nurse staffing.

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Anthony Codispoti: Maybe he had his own company before, or he had one at the time.

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Nurses Direct: Yes, yes.

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Anthony Codispoti: He needed some help.

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Anthony Codispoti: He knew how to run the business side of things, but he’s like, you seem like a good personality. A guy who can do sales, go out and hustle, find us some more clients, find us some more nurses. Is that kind of what the thought process was.

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Nurses Direct: That’s what happened. Yes, yes, he was looking for people to help get more business, and you know, market and drum of more business. Brett, and he always wanted nurses, and he only wanted registered nurses. He wanted that level of professionalism, and so he’d always try to get a registered nurse

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Nurses Direct: to help market, and and a native nurse in that in that specific area to get started.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay.

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Nurses Direct: That was his, that was his, his concept. That was his model.

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Anthony Codispoti: So you were a nurse. You’ve been a nurse for several years. You’d gone through that education, you you had worked your way up to Department Head. Obviously you knew that world pretty well. Now you’re stepping into a related world, but a different one and a very different role in sales. Did you feel well equipped going into that, or did you feel like you were kind of fumbling your way through the dark.

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Nurses Direct: Well, I’ll say this. Ever since my teenage years, probably around 1314 years old, I’ve always inspired to to be an entrepreneur. I I went into the medical field because my mother was a nurse, you know. I went into nursing, and I knew that I would have job security. I would have something that was stable to fall back on. A lot of my friends, especially being from South Louisiana.

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Nurses Direct: went into the oil field, or engineering or stuff like that, and I knew that was cyclical, depending on who was in the White House, you know. So.

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Anthony Codispoti: Price of oil is doing. Yeah.

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Nurses Direct: That’s exactly right, and I’d see it all the time it was the ebbs and flows. I said, Well, you know we don’t live in a 3rd World country. We have the greatest healthcare in the world. You know, they’re going to make people. If they’re sick they’ll spend their last penny to go into hospital and seek health care, I said. That’s a stable stable

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Nurses Direct: field to go into. So I went into that. But I’ve always look at the time

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Nurses Direct: I had a lawn care service. I was cutting the the grass for the hospitals and the nursing homes where I would work and supervise that. You know I had contracts with him on that. Well, one of the things Mark Savoy told me, he said. You know you cannot go cut grass in Peoria, Illinois, he said. But you could staff nurses there. I said, Okay, that kind of makes sense, he said. That’s very labor intensive. What you’re doing so. He’s taught me a lot about business, and he mentored me over the years.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay. So he brings. He brings you in as a partner. He’s like, Hey, I’ll front the payroll, you know. I I’ve got my role here. You’ve got your role.

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Anthony Codispoti: Tell me about how you sold that 1st client.

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Nurses Direct: Well, it wasn’t easy. The 1st

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Nurses Direct: client that I that I that I got was the 1st shift I ever staffed was at at a hospital that I was working at, but it was

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Nurses Direct: a a facility, an entity, that leased space in the hospital. They weren’t owned by the hospital. They were like. They were called an ltech, a long term, acute care, and what they would do. They would lease space in the hospital so many beds for rehab patients. So that was my 1st shift.

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Nurses Direct: I

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Nurses Direct: I I figured that was the easiest thing for me to get into, because the hospital didn’t look at me. They looked at me as an employee. Administration looked at me as a registered nurse as a department head. They didn’t look at me as oh, a businessman, and you’re gonna come in and supplemental staff as you’re you’re our nurse yourself with no business experience. So I was able to get into this entity to to this facility, and it was called Louisiana Healthcare Group, and now I’ve been staffing them

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Nurses Direct: 20 something years now, and ironically, whenever they 1st started. They were a small company, but they just sold for 5.4 billion. And yeah, yeah, good friend of mine, Keith Mars, Louisiana Healthcare Group. They sold out to the biggest hospital system optum and united health care. So yeah. And I was able to follow them around and done a lot a lot of work with them over the years.

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Anthony Codispoti: And is your service still focused in the State of Louisiana? Or are you providing staffing outside of there.

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Nurses Direct: During Covid. I think we expanded out to like 24 states.

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Nurses Direct: And now we’re in like, I think we just went back in 19 or 20, I’d have to look at.

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Nurses Direct: It’s we we do we do contract work sometimes, and another, you know, work. So in different states we have different footprints, but our concentrations more so.

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Nurses Direct: The South Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, is where the majority of our works at. But I mean we’ve gone all the way to Wyoming, and

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Nurses Direct: I don’t know where Delaware, New Jersey, I mean, it just depends wherever the needs at.

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Anthony Codispoti: So I’m curious on the staffing side of things. Why do you think your contract employees prefer working through you versus getting a full time job at the same place or somewhere else.

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Nurses Direct: Great question.

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Nurses Direct: Nursing’s a female dominated field

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Nurses Direct: and you know a lot of times the and then then it also has to do with the younger nurses. Generation of nurses. They don’t want that to be locked down. They want to be able to, let’s say, go to their their kids soccer game. Or maybe their husband has a really good job, and they don’t need the benefits

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Nurses Direct: they want. The flexibility of being able to pick and choose when they work, how often they work

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Nurses Direct: and where they work sometimes, and not all of them, but especially some of the younger nurses, I’m realizing. See, whenever I got out of school I wanted that stability. I wanted to go to one facility, build, climb the ladder, build relationships. There. That’s just how I was. You know, I wanted the stability. But like I say, and I’m not trying to be gender specific here. But I mean women sometimes. WA lot of times. We’ll see their husbands have really good jobs. They’re on their insurance.

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Nurses Direct: and they have the flexibility, and they also a lot of times are taking care of the, you know the the children and stuff, and and not always, but sometimes. And we also see a lot of

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Nurses Direct: single mothers that are nurses, and they want the flexibility also to be able to work when they can. They can work lots of days in a row, make enough money, then take off and and make their schedule as they see fit.

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Anthony Codispoti: And so how does that work from a scheduling perspective on the client side? Right? Because I would think that they would want sort of that stable? staffing right? But if if your contract workers are getting flexibility by working for you instead of the hospital, how are you kind of filling in the gaps when they don’t want to work.

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Nurses Direct: Well.

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Nurses Direct: you you that’s another good question. Our facilities. They do like what we call the continuity.

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Nurses Direct: the same nurse, same facility, same unit. And that does happen a lot.

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Nurses Direct: and what they’ll do is they’ll

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Nurses Direct: after years of developing rapports and and developing relationships with the nurse and the facilities they they’ll build a pool with us of, let’s say.

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Nurses Direct: 3 or 4 or 5 or 10 nurses that they really like, and they try to continue to schedule those same nurses actually asking for them by name, or sometimes circumventing us and texting them directly, which I don’t like, but it’s hard to prevent us, because, you know, we have to make sure that we

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Nurses Direct: we keep up with everything, and we make sure everything is confirmed. But I have nurses that have been working for me for 15 years, some of them since I started, and some of them still work at the same facilities that they were working at back then, just in working through us through supplemental staffing, because they’ve developed that relationship. I mean, they’re almost.

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Nurses Direct: They’re like staff now at the facilities, you know, and

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Nurses Direct: it works out. It works out sometimes, and sometimes it don’t. But you know, especially in the hospital systems, maybe not so much in the long term care facilities, or what we call nursing homes.

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Nurses Direct: The census fluctuates a lot. It’s an insurance has changed so much over the years, you know. 30, 40 years ago. You go in for an appendectomy. Get your appendix taken out. You might stay in the hospital a week. Now you go in in the morning. You’re gone before lunch, you know, so the staff has to also follow that.

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Nurses Direct: So when the census is up, it’s a direct correlation. They need the nurses, but they don’t need to keep that poor level and benefit full time nurses at all times.

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Nurses Direct: and what gives us the capability to do it better than the hospitals.

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Nurses Direct: If they have a freestanding brick and mortar hospital, and that’s all they have in that area. They might not own any other facilities. They cannot flex these nurses and send them to facilities across the street or across town, whereas we can

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Nurses Direct: do that, what happens with them if their census drops, and they’re not as busy. Well, those nurses are going elsewhere and looking for work. I’m able to give it to them if I develop a base and and have enough nurses and enough facilities in one given area to stay safe stable.

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Anthony Codispoti: Well, and I think you’ve just answered my next question, which is, why do the hospitals want to contract through nurses direct, instead of hiring these folks themselves, and I think the big thing I just heard you say is.

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Anthony Codispoti: they need that flexibility like there. There are times when they’ve got more patients in there. They they need more coverage. There are times when things are slow they need less coverage.

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Anthony Codispoti: and it’s harder to do that when they’ve got their own full time employees there. It’s a lot easier

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Anthony Codispoti: to have that flexibility with nurses direct, because you’ve got multiple hospitals in the area that you can send people to, or pull them from when that need rises or falls right.

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Nurses Direct: Correct in in a nutshell. Yes, I mean, there’s a lot more

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Nurses Direct: to it. But yeah, exactly. That’s the concept. Yes.

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Anthony Codispoti: Are there other benefits for a hospital, using nurses direct versus hiring their own full time? Employees.

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Nurses Direct: Well, I mean, you know they they don’t have.

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Nurses Direct: They don’t have to manage. They don’t have to manage as many people. They don’t have to pay as many benefits. And and I believe you know, like I said, if if they hire their employees directly, and something happens, you know,

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Nurses Direct: to where they don’t have the need for them, or if they have them on full time, then they’d have to guarantee them those hours. And here’s another thing. Many a times the hospital systems, and I’ve seen it over the years over 20, some years of staff, and they’ll try to do their own in House pool of agency. Same thing happens, though. They

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Nurses Direct: they can’t keep them busy enough. And and like, I always tell the hospital is they’re not in the recruiting staffing business. They’re in the patient. They’re they’re they’re they’re in the business of taking care of patients bottom line. That is what they do. They’re in the medical, you know, medical field of taking, you know, medically taking care of people. They’re not in the Hr. Recruiting, staffing, supplemental staffing business and managing and some of the best

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Nurses Direct: best bedside nurses. They’re they’re most senior nurses in the facility. They’re sitting behind a desk trying to get staff instead of at the bedside, where they really, so that they they see the benefits long term. And like, I say, they can work through us. And in one call or one text message. And with technology nowadays, we’ve pretty much eliminated phone calls. Well, I mean, you know where? With the apps and the programs that we have. They just

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Nurses Direct: shoot us over the needs when we put them in a put them in our staffing program and it goes straight to them. And they know who’s coming in, when, where, what, how, and that’s the reason why I called it nurses direct. I still haven’t tweaked it exactly the way I want it, but I’m getting there.

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Anthony Codispoti: Still haven’t tweaked the name the way that you want it, or the.

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Nurses Direct: The concept of what I want to do. Nurses directs concept always was using the technology and platform with the Geo fencing. So I’d know when they when they’re going to be at the hospital when they leave for time and attendance, and

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Nurses Direct: and eliminating a lot of the labor intensive processes of it.

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Anthony Codispoti: And is that something still being worked on that tech that you’re describing.

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Nurses Direct: Yes, and I don’t know. I mean I can’t. I can’t implement it everywhere as I’m at, because, especially in Louisiana and some of the places we staff being really rural areas. We don’t have the bandwidth some places to be able to do that.

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Nurses Direct: you know. My concept was whenever Geo. Fencing came out and the technology came out is, I could have a Geo. Fence around my facility, and I would know if a nurse.

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Nurses Direct: what, by having their push notifications open on their app. If they wouldn’t get there in time, I can redirect it to the other nurses in the area to let them know that they wouldn’t be there, and also to the facility for call ins or note, you know, stuff like that. But a lot of times in the rural areas. We don’t have the bandwidth for them to even punch in and out, or some of my nurses, if I, if I you know some of them.

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Nurses Direct: especially some of the nursing assistants. They don’t their phones won’t allow them to do certain things, you know, apps or they don’t have. They don’t have media on their phones so, or the older ones. So you always run into bumps in the road. But that’s that’s kind of the the route I was taking. I mean, we we’re getting there, and I mean the system is so much better than whenever I 1st started. I had a 3 ring binder and razor phones that I was trying to keep charge. You know.

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Nurses Direct: Flip phones.

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Anthony Codispoti: So what stage is that tech in now? Is it sort of like kind of sitting on the shelf because of some of the challenges that you described with flip phones and lack of bandwidth? Or are you

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Anthony Codispoti: actively working on it and tend to roll it out in the areas that you can.

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Nurses Direct: Well, we, we’re always improving our technology. We we use texting apps. We use staffing apps that will allow the nurses to see where all our needs at in any given area we can do, we can push out messages to nurses in any given area. Query it. However, we want they can pick up shifts. The hospitals can can accept the shifts. Then we confirm them all within clicks on the phone, with no phone, with with no

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Nurses Direct: calls or labor intensive processes all through apps and and the different things that we use. So no, we’re there.

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Nurses Direct: I mean, we’re there. I’d always like to improve it and make it better. But, like I said, in some areas it’ll never be. I mean, you know, they’re never gonna go somewhere in the middle of.

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Nurses Direct: and if nowhere is a little nursing home, that might be a population of 300 people, you know, a little village or something. It’s not. We’re not going to get there with that.

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Anthony Codispoti: Right. I want to go back to something that you said earlier, cause it. It kind of clicked something in my head. Sort of this idea of like hospitals are not

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Anthony Codispoti: Hr. And staffing companies. They’re they’re in the business of taking care of sick and injured people.

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Anthony Codispoti: So I mean much in the same way that they would go out and hire, say, like a marketing firm, you know, if if they wanted to to do some marketing, because that’s not. I mean, they could hire marketing people in house right? But you’re not going to get that same level of broad expertise that you would get if you hired a firm who specializes in that. And it’s a similar kind of thing with you guys like what you do all day every day is you recruit and retain

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Anthony Codispoti: great nurses, and know how to move them in and out of different places as the demand warrants. And that’s just not something that the hospitals are set up to do as well as you are.

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Nurses Direct: Correct. That is not their goal.

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Nurses Direct: you know. Yes, I mean they they they they try really hard, but I mean, their their bottom line is like you say, take care of a patient in the bed and making that. Yes.

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Anthony Codispoti: So by using nurses direct, they’re able to focus more on their core competencies.

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Nurses Direct: Yes.

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Anthony Codispoti: So. I’m curious to hear a little bit more about what makes you guys special in the industry? Clearly, you’re not the only company that provides nurse staffing.

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Anthony Codispoti: What is it that nurses direct? Does? That is special or different?

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Nurses Direct: Well, we’re all nurses here that have found that the company

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Nurses Direct: and family nurses and family. My wife is a school teacher, but she’s given up her career to work for us full time. Mark’s wife, my business partner, Mark Savo, his wife’s a registered nurse. Also she works here with us. So we know from actually doing the job working agency. Darla’s Worked Agency, Mark’s Work Agency. I’ve worked agency. So we were on the other side.

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Nurses Direct: We were the ones being recruited and and marketed and trying to, you know, get to retain us, to go out and work at facilities. So we have firsthand experience before even coming into the staffing on the other side of the fence. So we really care. And we have our own stories, and we know the

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Nurses Direct: We know the industry pretty well. I’ll I’ll say. You know I’ve been doing it my whole career, and so is Mark, and so is Darla. So I think that’s kind of what sets us above everyone else, and especially in this region in South Louisiana. What we kind of call Cajun country. Here is where we’re located. It’s such a

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Nurses Direct: It’s such a unique area in Louisiana and so much culture. Everybody feels like family. So I think we have a really good connection here from where our base started, and we try to treat everybody like, you know. I look at each and every nurse. My concept is always one nurse at a time.

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Nurses Direct: I want to develop a relationship with the nurse, find out exactly what they need and what they want and what their likes and what their tendencies are, and and give us the feedback. And then we want to try to find them. The

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Nurses Direct: best possible work environment that we can give them. That’s what we do. And I’d rather have one quality nurse than than 10 of them that I don’t really know. And you know, as it’s grown.

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Nurses Direct: It’s not. I’m not physically capable of doing it anymore. I used to know all of my nurses. Now we have databases of thousands of nurses, and I still try and they always get me. Look, you need a you need to call this one. I call 2 of them today. You know, there were issues and problems. And and I still like talking to them. Because I I can feel and empathize and understand the stress that they’re under. You know, working

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Nurses Direct: in in a hospital environment or in the environment as a nurse is very stressful sometimes. And so we want to just try to help them along their way, and pay them well, and treat them fair.

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Anthony Codispoti: Well, I think you hit on a great point there. The fact that you.

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Anthony Codispoti: your partner.

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Anthony Codispoti: and his wife, who’s also a partner all have background in these roles. And so when you’re talking to the nurses, when you’re talking to the hospitals, you’re not talking as somebody who’s unfamiliar or uneducated about what the environment is like. You know, you’ve been there. You’ve gotten your fingers dirty. You’ve had your sleeves rolled up.

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Nurses Direct: Yes. Oh, yeah, absolutely, you know, and I can give you an example. Whenever I 1st started, I had mentioned I only lived a couple of blocks from the hospital that I worked at before I opened my nursing agency. Well.

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Nurses Direct: I had a nurse one time, drove about about an hour to come to work. It’s in Baton Rouge, drove to Appaloosis for some reason, calls me whenever he gets in the parking lot and says, you know.

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Nurses Direct: really don’t feel like going to work today. I think I’m gonna just call off. And I’m all like they’re asking for like 4 or 5 more nurses. Please don’t do this to me. Well, I had to call the director of nurses at the time, and we came up the ladder together, but she was the head of the hospital, and she was there working because their census was so high, and it was a weekend, and they didn’t have anybody. So whenever I called her to let her know that I won’t mention the nurse’s name wouldn’t be coming in, she said. Why don’t you put on your lap coat and come on over here, and I sure did.

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Anthony Codispoti: All right.

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Nurses Direct: Oh, yeah, I mean, I’ve I’ve done that, you know I did. Whatever it took

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Nurses Direct: physically. If if I was able to do it I would go. I’d work shifts and and develop that rapport, and with the with the facilities. And and so they know they can count on us, you know. So yeah, I’ve done that multiple times.

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Anthony Codispoti: So we talked about how you got that 1st client. I’m curious how you recruited that 1st nurse. I’m guessing technology is way different today and the the processes that you’re using at this scale, or have changed dramatically. But how about that 1st one.

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Nurses Direct: Okay. Well.

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Nurses Direct: I’ll tell you what I did. I kind of cheated a little bit here. I guess you can say

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Nurses Direct: I was working in the hospital

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Nurses Direct: where where I was working at, and other agencies were staffing, you know, in in the facility. So I had a I was actually the head of a hyperbarics wound care unit. And we bring around a little digital camera to take pictures of the

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Nurses Direct: of the wound, care the wound patients and stuff. Well, I’d see the other agency nurses in there because they don’t allow them to wear the agency badges anymore. But they had the little name tags and with the agency. So I would approach them. Say, listen, I’m trying. And I’d take their picture with the same digital camera I was using to make them a little badge, and then next next day they were working for me somewhere else, or wherever. So that’s how I recruited them, cause I was in there. I was already in there, so I started.

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Anthony Codispoti: What was the sales pitch? What what? They’ve got a job now? Why, switch.

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Nurses Direct: Well, I mean, I just had to sell him on and tell him you know, that I was a nurse, because

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Nurses Direct: I guess they they didn’t see the other, the the agency

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Nurses Direct: people there, and they they were far off. They wasn’t local. So I tell them, look, I’m gonna treat you good not try to pay them a little more, or whatever I had to do to convince them. And I tell them, look, I’ll give you the preference on the shifts, and I tell them which facilities I have, where you’d like to work at. I say, oh, look! I have that facility. You want to come, work over there. I’ll give you the day shifts, or whatever shifts. You won’t come. Work for me, and I’ll pay you every day. I’ll pay them daily, if words as they wouldn’t getting paid as often. I even implemented something new

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Nurses Direct: years and years ago, where I had a little payroll card, and I would transfer the money from this card to that card. It was like a prepaid credit card, and I would load this card and then transfer their money. While they were walking to their car I’d put their money on their card, so they were paid instantly. They like that. Anything I had to do to get them to start with me. And then I developed relationships with them. I tried everything.

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Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, this is a question that I love to ask all my guests is, you know, I’ve heard certain industries. The labor market is softening a little bit but still tight, and I’m gonna guess it. It’s still pretty tight in the nursing world. Is that correct?

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Nurses Direct: Yes, I mean, there’s still a very big need for nurses, I I mean, look, whenever Covid hit. I’ve never. We’ve never experienced anything like that before. It was

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Nurses Direct: It was really it was. It was hard, it was bad. Not only that I mean it affected our industry directly nurses were scared. They wanted, I mean, look, we had nurses. We had to pay a lot. I mean, it was a lot. I mean, the the cost went up 50% or more in some areas.

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Nurses Direct: you know, it’s coming back down now for different reasons. And I like to do a lot of research and monitor, but you know the burnout rate is very, very high with nurses, especially nurses working at the bedside.

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Nurses Direct: so A lot of them are trying to get into different fields or get into doctors, offices, or something. So what we do specifically staffing at the bedside and in the hospital systems acute care. The burnout rates pretty pretty high.

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Anthony Codispoti: Is there anything that you can do to to help alleviate that.

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Nurses Direct: We’re trying. I’m working with the in Louisiana. Specifically, I work very closely with our legislatures, our representatives, in passing bills to get more nursing schools, more nursing instructors.

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Nurses Direct: I try to work with the facilities to direct recruit form. We even do head hunting to hire, you know. Hire directly for them to fill their needs cause. I’m not always going to be able to just fill all of their needs. And actually, I tend to kind of stay away from facilities that some facilities. I’ll start staffing, and I’m noticing Whoa! Every nurse in there is my nurse that’s not good. I mean, I’ve had that happen before, especially during.

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Anthony Codispoti: Is that not part of the contract that they can’t hire the the.

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Nurses Direct: The control what I’m talking about the whole like

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Nurses Direct: every nurse that was.

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Anthony Codispoti: Oh, oh, they are working for you! And and so they’re relying fully on you.

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Nurses Direct: Pretty much. Yes, I mean like at some of the nursing homes, especially during Covid and stuff. All the nurses were quitting because opportunities were elsewhere. And so it’s like, Okay, we have 6, 5 or 6 nurses and nursing assistants, and I’d ask them, because

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Nurses Direct: back then we still they’d sign slips, paper slips, or now it’s digital. And I’m all like, why is one of my nurses verifying your time? They said, well, Mr. Mike, there’s nobody else in here but our nurses, I said, Whoa! Hold on! That’s scary to me, because I know there’s really no continuity there.

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Nurses Direct: and and it’s worrisome to me so I would rather a facility.

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Nurses Direct: Be stable. You know your nurses don’t want to work at places like that that are chaos.

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Anthony Codispoti: Yeah.

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Nurses Direct: You know you have a like you were saying they have a different nurse different day. I’d I’d rather help them build their pool, their staff up to where they have good staff. It’s easier for me to staff their whole, their their supplemental staffing than if they have a good base.

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Nurses Direct: so I’ll realize that.

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Anthony Codispoti: Without giving away any secret sauce. I’m curious what you guys do to be so successful, 1st in recruiting

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Anthony Codispoti: good nurses and then retaining them to where they don’t want to go and work for one of your competitors, or or leave and go to a hospital directly. What? What are some things that you’ve tried in that recruiting and retention space that have worked for you.

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Nurses Direct: Well.

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Nurses Direct: everybody’s unique, and and and individuals are different, and every nurse is different. But I’ll tell you the things over the years we’ve worked at, whereas before we used to run ads on like the typical indeed or glass store stuff, social media is a big platform now, getting on a lot of these blogs and

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Nurses Direct: finding you know the nurses there and developing relationships with them. I always tell my recruiters and my staff anytime they are talking to a nurse and and trying to recruit a nurse.

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Nurses Direct: Always find out as much information on them as possible. The better we know our nurses the better we are. We are able to to serve them and and and help them find what they need. So IW. The one of my biggest things is

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Nurses Direct: whenever we’re on the phone with somebody, don’t ever explain something away. What’s the problem? How can we fix it? I want to help you and develop the relationship, find out about, you know their children and what they like and everything. So I think we have, we try to get a really personal relationship with our nurses. And and you know, I I like to be transparent with them. Also, I’m like, you know, I I’m gonna we have to stay in business, but I’m gonna try to pay my nurses

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Nurses Direct: as much as I can, and and make my profits to stay in business, and they they see that. So where they won’t try to go

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Nurses Direct: for a temporary other nursing agency almost pay you another couple of dollars an hour. Well, yeah, but it’s gonna be temporary cause. Eventually, the facility they’re gonna have to go up on their rates at the same facility and the profit margins will be different. So they’re gonna get that to. It’s the it’s the carrot and stick. There’s gonna be no longevity there, and they see, hey? If we stick with nurses direct. They’re gonna treat us right? They’re gonna give us preference on the shifts and they’re gonna fight for us and

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Nurses Direct: try to get the, you know, availabilities for us and develop also the relationship with the department managers and the heads in the facilities is is another thing. So we have to kind of

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Nurses Direct: on both sides have that relationship, and

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Nurses Direct: whenever I 1st started I would go out and meet and greet. But now we try to do Zoom calls with our facilities and talk to them and see what we can do better. And you know, with quality control.

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Anthony Codispoti: Do. Most of your nurse nurses tend to work in the same

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Anthony Codispoti: geographical area, or do they like to kind of move around like, oh, I want a vacation in Atlanta like I’m you know. I’m going to go work there for a few months.

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Nurses Direct: I used to do. I used to do some travel nursing years and years ago. I we we kind of tend to steer away from that now. I don’t like to send nurses across the country, and there are agencies that do just that. We’re not heavily weighted on traveling nurses across the country. What I like to do is recruit in a specific area and build a pool of facilities in that area and a pool of nurses in that area now. Some of them will drive.

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Nurses Direct: you know, and we can stipend them if they drive more than like 60, 65 miles, or whatever we give them allowances for housing and and food and stuff like that. But as far as for I have in the past, but it’s more labor intensive. I would send nurses from, say, Louisiana to St. George, Utah staff nurses in Hawaii, of staff nurses all up and down the coast, you know I mean all over. But now I find that the

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Nurses Direct: the the the way I laid you know my my business model is is to recruit in an individual area and and spread from those pods.

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Nurses Direct: Yeah, it sounds like.

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Anthony Codispoti: Like there would be economies of scale from your model. Right? You. You don’t just have one hospital, and you don’t just have like 3 nurses. You’ve got several hospital outfits, and you’ve got dozens or hundreds. I don’t know of nurses in that same geography, so it’s easier to move people in and out of shifts as demand changes.

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Nurses Direct: That’s that’s that’s what works best for us. And that was trial and error.

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Nurses Direct: You know it it

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Nurses Direct: we learned. And we all like. And this, this is, this is the

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Nurses Direct: the model that worked best for us. And that’s what I choose. That’s how I choose to do. Yeah.

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Anthony Codispoti: What? What are future growth? Plans look like for nurses, direct.

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Nurses Direct: Well, we’re we’re definitely growing. I can see us going.

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Nurses Direct: you know, pretty much in any state we want to. In the next couple of years. We’re working with a lot more what we call vendor management systems to where we’re getting into bigger hospital systems and bigger areas.

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Nurses Direct: I mean I can, you know, year by year. But now Covid was was an outlier. But I mean, I can see is I mean, we’re growing year, year in, year out.

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Nurses Direct: 1050, I mean, during Covid, I saw I was growing 10% a month sometimes. I mean, it was so hard to keep. Oh, it was so hard to keep up it! The volume was really. I had to give up my desk. I had to give up my office my business partner had to give up his desk in his office. We had to hire so many human resource and on boarders. And yeah, it was. It was. It was craziness really.

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Anthony Codispoti: Intense.

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Nurses Direct: It was, it was I, I and I. But the good thing about it

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Nurses Direct: end result. We developed a lot of relationships with nurses and facilities. So it all worked out in the end. But I mean we were working some 1820 h days every day.

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Anthony Codispoti: Well on behalf of everybody who was on the receiving end of those nursing services. Thank you to you and your nurses for what you did during that crazy time. Everybody was scared nurses in particular, because, you know, they were on the front line of it all. So hats off to you guys.

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Nurses Direct: Yes.

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Anthony Codispoti: Absolutely.

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Nurses Direct: Thank you.

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Anthony Codispoti: So I’m curious as you go into a new state. Is that a big lift? Is there like new licensing rules in each place? You you go. Yeah.

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Nurses Direct: Every State’s different. Some States require a license in the State. Other States just require us to be licensed, you know, and follow certain criterias, but each State is different.

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Nurses Direct: some of the the more difficult States may be. For instance, California has a lot of regulations. New York, but I mean pretty much. Every State’s different. And I have.

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Nurses Direct: I have a legal

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Nurses Direct: own staff, you know I have. I have actually, Matt, that you saw earlier. He has his Juris doctor, and so he kind of evaluates all of the stuff for us, and he does a little bit of everything, and he’s great with it. So Matt helps out a lot with that.

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Anthony Codispoti: Yeah. Matt was helpful in getting us all set up and resolving some tech issues here before the interview. So yeah, he he’s wearing many hats as well himself.

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Anthony Codispoti: What, Michael, what are some of the most common mistakes that you see hospitals making when when staffing their facilities.

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Nurses Direct: One of the biggest mistakes I see with with staffing, especially supplemental staffing. I I’d like to focus in on that

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Nurses Direct: is

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Nurses Direct: the agency. Nurses are there to help meet a need.

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Nurses Direct: and lots of times they know that they just see nurses are better compensated than they are.

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Nurses Direct: And there’s some animosity sometimes.

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Nurses Direct: and the way I look at it is.

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Nurses Direct: treat them fair. Try to. And I and I and I tried to. I don’t like to get involved on that end, because that’s not my position. But I talked to the department heads, and when, especially whenever one of my nurses, I know are getting not getting fairly treated. They’ll give them the harder assignments, they’ll, you know, just

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Nurses Direct: not communicate with them, not show them the little tid ins and outs, because every place is different where where this is located, where that’s, you know, and it’s like we try to do the best we can with orientation. And the longer that I do staff the facilities

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Nurses Direct: the the more capable we are at educating the nurses prior to them, working there, and and you know, every facility is different, but some of them will allow us to send our nurse, for, you know, like a

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Nurses Direct: scaled down version of an orientation, maybe 8 h, or for, you know, 4 h, or something like that, but they usually don’t get as much as a full time employee would have, cause they want them to come in and function right away. So I think one of the biggest mistakes that I think it happens, and it happens on the staffing side is them.

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Nurses Direct: not not

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Nurses Direct: not treating the nurses the same as their full time staff.

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Nurses Direct: And whenever that happens I I tend to pull back, and you know.

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Nurses Direct: like no, it’s not a really good place, and that the nurses know I’m not going to work over there, and they know.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay.

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Anthony Codispoti: nobody needs that. That’s not helpful for business that’s not helpful for your nurses.

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Nurses Direct: Yeah.

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Anthony Codispoti: I want to shift gears on you now, Michael, I’m curious to hear about a serious challenge that you had to overcome, either personally or professionally, and maybe some lessons that you learned coming through that.

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Nurses Direct: Wow! This one really gets to me here in January 1st of 2,004,

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Nurses Direct: I was doing both. I was working agency, and I was still kind of picking up at the facility where I was at just Prn. As needed. So I was still kind of working as a nurse and running my nursing agency, but I was involved in a motorcycle right?

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Nurses Direct: And a serious, serious wreck. I

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Nurses Direct: I broke 19 bones at one time brushed both my femurs.

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Nurses Direct: 9 ribs punctured my lung, both my wrist, my arm I wound up at the same hospital I worked at for 12 years on a ventilator in Icu, like just

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Nurses Direct: holding on grasping for life. And you know, it really touched me, thinking I didn’t know if I was gonna make it out of there I stayed in a wheelchair one day. Less of like 6 months had multiple surgeries. So it really, really

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Nurses Direct: even more so showed me the patient side of it.

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Nurses Direct: I was scared, you know, and and it’s like, Do you want to be informed of what’s going on? I thought my career was over, I thought I was gonna lose everything. I really thought I was gonna die, and I fought to come back I’ll never forget. I’d show up and work in my wheelchair, you know, and now I can tell

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Nurses Direct: from 1st hand experience, my nurses that work in critical care, or even bedside, I said, listen.

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Nurses Direct: inform your patients. Let them know what’s going on. Don’t treat them like a number that’s somebody’s brother or grandfather or mother, and I just tried to make the best of the situation, but that that’s hard for me, and even to this day I have

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Nurses Direct: effects from it, just

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Nurses Direct: thinking about it. I get emotional, and and physically, too, I still heard. I have titanium rods for both my knees to both my hips and my arms, so

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Nurses Direct: I know I would never be able to work anymore as a nurse. Full time. They wouldn’t accept me, and I would. So I’m I’m I’m blessed to say that I do have this now, and it made me work and appreciate it even more.

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Nurses Direct: So that was, that was.

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Anthony Codispoti: What? What was that like that?

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Anthony Codispoti: I I mean I don’t. I don’t want to go too much back to the dark days, but I mean to be in a position where you’re not sure if you’re going to make it.

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Anthony Codispoti: And that’s a fear that thankfully, I’ve never known.

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Anthony Codispoti: But I’m kind of curious a couple of things, you know, one like, what got you through that hard period? And then 2.

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Anthony Codispoti: How, if at all, did it change your perspective on life and business.

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Nurses Direct: Well, what got me through. I’ll never forget there this one moment that I can.

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Nurses Direct: I can

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Nurses Direct: pick out whenever I was in Icu, and I was on the ventilator, and my arms were tied. And my wife. I’m with Mindy, the one I told you the school teacher and my daughters walked in. They were really young at the time they were standing up against a wall. They didn’t even want to come touch me. They couldn’t even they didn’t even recognize me. And I said to myself, You know.

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Nurses Direct: I said, you know I’m a Christian, I’m Catholic, and I said, Well, God, if you’re gonna take me.

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Nurses Direct: Go ahead now. And I felt like

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Nurses Direct: for something like I said, You know, I’m I just felt like, Okay, I’m gonna make it. And I started fighting. Then what kept me through that got me through that is, my children and my wife and I just fought, and at that point in time I quit taking all pain medicine to try to wean myself off the ventilator because I wasn’t able to come off of it.

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Nurses Direct: With all of the morphine and and stuff they were giving me, because it was suppressing my respirations so.

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Nurses Direct: and it was hard with non broken ribs every time that ventilator would circulate. But I knew I had to come off the ventilator. They were gonna trade. They were gonna put a tracheotomy, and I didn’t want that either. So I quit taking my pain medication, and they weaned me off the ventilator like 48 h later.

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Anthony Codispoti: Whoa.

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Anthony Codispoti: wow!

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Anthony Codispoti: That’s intense.

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Nurses Direct: Yeah, yeah, it was a.

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Anthony Codispoti: How do you view life differently now than you did before the accident.

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Nurses Direct: I I definitely appreciated a lot more. I mean, you know, I appreciate my kids and my family a lot. I’d say a lot more. It’s just I realize how precious life is. I did before being a nurse, because I’d see people come in.

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Nurses Direct: you know, when

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Nurses Direct: they would die young, and then I’d see old people come in and suffer and suffer for months and months and months. But now I realize that you know

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Nurses Direct: you. You only die once, and and it can happen at any time. And nobody’s, you know. They say, well, you’re not promised tomorrow. Well, no, you’re not promised today. We don’t know. We’re going to make it through today at any given time. You know, the body is very resourceful and can get you through a lot of things and then other things.

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Nurses Direct: It doesn’t take much. Some type of bacterial infection. I’ve seen older people jive from chicken, pox, varicels, pneumonia that you would never think I mean

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Nurses Direct: other people getting major accidents, Major trauma, and they pull through. So

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Nurses Direct: what is it? You know

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Nurses Direct: I don’t know. Life is life. You have to look at it as we’re not. We’re not promised. The next

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Nurses Direct: day. We’re not promised anything, so make the most that you can of each and every day

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Nurses Direct: different.

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Anthony Codispoti: Today, live in this moment.

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Nurses Direct: Absolutely. Yeah.

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Anthony Codispoti: Michael, what’s a fun fact that somebody wouldn’t know about you?

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Anthony Codispoti: Something interesting.

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Nurses Direct: A fun fact that somebody wouldn’t know about me. Well.

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Nurses Direct: I’m I’m very, very extroverted and and outspoken, and I’ve never been a shy person in my life, but I really

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Nurses Direct: I really can withdraw. I own some timber property. I love to just go out there and

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Nurses Direct: forget about everything, and not have anybody around me or speak. I I don’t know. I guess people would never think they always think I’m a sociable one a lot of times. I just want to be alone and not have. And and most people don’t judge me. I would never think you would be like this. Yeah, I don’t

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Nurses Direct: I? Don’t. I have to escape sometimes that and

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Nurses Direct: I mean, I can be a nerd. Sometimes I like to collect coins and stuff like that. So you know.

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Anthony Codispoti: Old, us coins or.

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Nurses Direct: Well.

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Anthony Codispoti: Like silver.

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Nurses Direct: Coins and different things numerous. I don’t collect as much numasmatic anymore I used to, but I like to have perfect coins. Seventies like I I if I buy anything, it’ll always be

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Nurses Direct: perfect in a Numa smell like they. They grade them from one to 70 always buy. I like to, because even though they’re uncirculated, untouched, and everything only one in thousands and thousands are gonna ever come out perfect. If it’s the 1st die or the 1st print. After a while there will never be rated that. So? Yeah, I’m a kind of a nerd. With that I’ll sit there with my magnifying glasses. Look at them and stuff my wife laughs at.

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Nurses Direct: and so.

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Anthony Codispoti: Do you keep them like in a drawer or safe? Or do you have them on display somewhere in a case.

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Nurses Direct: I have them in a safe. I don’t. Yeah, I don’t keep them. Yeah. And I’ll go through them. I got them all cataloged, and when I bought them, and how much I paid them.

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Anthony Codispoti: So do you ever take them out to your your property, and and all alone? Just sit there and look at them with nobody else around, and sort of recharge your batteries.

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Nurses Direct: That’s so funny. I sent my my business partner a video the other day of my collection, and he’s all you need help. And I was at my place, getting them all in order and everything. Yes, I do. That’s so funny. That’s ironic. You see that. Yeah, I did.

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Anthony Codispoti: But you, you combine 2 of your loves there, like even the most gregarious people, they they got to recharge their batteries sometimes. Yeah.

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Nurses Direct: I have to escape. Yes, and that’s my escape. And yeah, I love. I love South Louisiana. It’s home to me. I love the culture. I love, the peacefulness, I mean. I’ve been all over the United States. I used to have another company, a cell tower business, but that’s another day so I’ve got to travel a lot around this country, but this is home to me, and I always come back.

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Anthony Codispoti: Let’s see, what’s what’s something you wish you could teach your younger self, Michael.

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Anthony Codispoti: something that’s obvious to you now, maybe wasn’t back then.

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Nurses Direct: Not to sweat the small things, keep your eye on the big picture, and continue at your goals.

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Nurses Direct: Educate yourself as much as possible on anything that you have a passion for, and use your own judgment. I’ve always.

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Nurses Direct: whenever I was younger.

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Nurses Direct: I think the biggest mistake I’d make was listening to other

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Nurses Direct: people directly that I kind of looked up to.

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Nurses Direct: And now I realize I am that person.

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Nurses Direct: and the advice I even give to to younger generation, find your passion.

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Nurses Direct: work at it as diligent and as hard, you know, as you can educate yourself, do your due diligence, and make your own decisions.

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Nurses Direct: but but educate yourself and use examples.

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Nurses Direct: but it there’s no one.

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Nurses Direct: There’s no best way. There’s your best way.

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Nurses Direct: So that that’s if I could tell my young self that it would be that

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Nurses Direct: blaze your own trail.

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Anthony Codispoti: I like that. I’m writing that one down. There’s no best way. There’s your best way.

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Nurses Direct: Yes.

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Nurses Direct: you know, I always say the same thing. We’re all products of our environment

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Nurses Direct: and what we’re surrounded with. So you’re molded because my my background was psychology, and, as I thought at one time I was going to be a psychologist. But then I went into nursing because I wouldn’t have made any money way back. Then they didn’t pay for those

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Nurses Direct: the psychological disorders. But you know, we’re products of an environment you either adapt and thrive, and in nature you’ll be called out if you don’t, so you have to. You have to conform, and my biggest thing I always use.

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Nurses Direct: and they’ll hear me say this around the office all the time, I said, you never fail unless you quit, and I don’t quit. I pivot.

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Nurses Direct: I’m not going to continue to do the same thing that I’m doing. That’s not working because that’s insanity.

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Nurses Direct: you know, to expect a different result. But a pivot.

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Nurses Direct: So I’m gonna just continue to, and one of my biggest inspirations and quotes I love is Martin Luther King, Jr. Is, you know, if you can’t fly, run if you can’t run, walk. If you can’t walk, crawl whatever you do, just keep moving forward and pivot, pivot if you need to.

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Nurses Direct: so you know I don’t give up. I won’t quit.

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Nurses Direct: I’ll quit doing the same thing over and over.

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Anthony Codispoti: You’ll pick.

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Nurses Direct: That’s exactly right.

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Anthony Codispoti: I think words matter. And that’s that’s a good example of that.

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Anthony Codispoti: Any specific mentors or books, podcasts experiences that you want to give a shout out to that. Have been helpful in kind of molding you in in your trajectory

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Anthony Codispoti: we’d lose the audio.

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Anthony Codispoti: Sorry we can edit. We can edit this out.

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Anthony Codispoti: We’ll get it fixed, and we’ll edit it out.

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Nurses Direct: Absolutely.

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Anthony Codispoti: Did a battery die?

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Nurses Direct: I’ve got. Excuse me.

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Nurses Direct: Can you hear me?

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Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, but it’s sort of that bad cell phone connection again.

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Anthony Codispoti: can you guys hear me.

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Nurses Direct: Yes, we can hear you.

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Nurses Direct: Can you hear me?

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Anthony Codispoti: Some. Yeah, that’s good.

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Nurses Direct: Okay. Alright, can we? Can I sit here.

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Anthony Codispoti: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. We’ll just. I’ll just repeat that last question when you’re ready.

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Nurses Direct: All right. I’m ready.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay.

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Anthony Codispoti: any, any specific mentors, books, podcasts.

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Anthony Codispoti: other types of experiences that you want to give a shout out to that have been helpful in sort of molding you and the trajectory of your career.

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Nurses Direct: Well.

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Nurses Direct: I like to read and research and stuff. Whenever I was younger

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Nurses Direct: I would read

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Nurses Direct: different articles and different things. I’ve always looked up to successful people.

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Nurses Direct: So I mean, I can give you a few examples. I mean, I looked up to

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Nurses Direct: to to like the billionaires like the

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Nurses Direct: Microsoft gates, and and even trump. I read some of his things, and just to see how business men and models and entrepreneurs. So I’ve always looked up to anybody that’s successful in their field. No one thing in particular, but I always aspire to to.

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Nurses Direct: I always had that entrepreneurial

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Nurses Direct: mind and concept, and I’ve always wanted to work for myself, so

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Nurses Direct: no, I won’t say anything specific. I read and make like I say, I read everything I can. I get my hands on, and I’ll make my my decisions on whether you know.

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Nurses Direct: So that that’s nothing specific.

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Anthony Codispoti: Okay, Mike, I just have one more question for you. But before I ask it, I want to do 2 things. If you’re listening today. And you like, today’s content. Please hit the like, subscribe or share button on your favorite podcast app. I also want to let people know the best way to get in touch with you, Mike. What would that be?

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Nurses Direct: Well, they can go to our website at a nurses direct.us, or they can call our direct line (337) 362-4004.

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Nurses Direct: And also we have. They can look us up on Facebook at nurses direct. So multiple ways that’d be the best way to get in touch with us

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Nurses Direct: right.

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Anthony Codispoti: Last question for you, Mike. How do you see your industry evolving in the next 5 years? What do you think the big changes are that are coming.

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Nurses Direct: Well, I think we’re gonna have to see what AI is gonna do to this industry technology wise how medicine may advance we we don’t know. It’s always, you know, medicine is always on the cutting edge of technology. So we don’t know what cures or what things can happen. As far. As for the nurse staffing.

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Nurses Direct: I see it

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Nurses Direct: always still. Still be in a very, very high demand, like, I said, because of the burnout rates. I’m just hoping we can perfect the model more to at least utilize the the staff and the availability that we have now to the best of their potential. So in the next 5 years

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Nurses Direct: it’s hard to. It’s hard to see what changes I mean. I’ve been doing it for 25 years, and there’s changes, but there’s not acute and drastic changes, Covid, or whenever a hurricane hits us, it’s acute drastic for me, because I went through Rita Katrina, and it was, let me tell you that was that I could compare that to Covid

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Nurses Direct: it was worse. For a short period of time. Covid was just longer.

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Anthony Codispoti: Oh, interesting. Yeah. And those those hurricanes are bad for you, because, there, there’s so much trauma that needs dealt with. And there’s so many people displaced

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Anthony Codispoti: some of those people that are displaced, or the the nurses that you want to get there to help these folks.

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Nurses Direct: Yeah, and the patients. They evacuated all of New Orleans and sent them to North Louisiana and Arkansas. And they, you know, I mean it was. Yes, it’s

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Nurses Direct: chaos. It’s like herding cats, and the nurses scatter, you know. They all have to look out for themselves, their family, and everything. So yeah, it’s a hurricane, really is.

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Nurses Direct: it’s an acute drastic change for us, and we have to prepare.

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Nurses Direct: because I have a lot of nurses in Louisiana.

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Anthony Codispoti: But in terms of changes to the the nurse staffing model. Maybe AI is going to have some impact on on how you recruit folks, and and how medical care is delivered.

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Anthony Codispoti: That kind of where your thought is.

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Nurses Direct: Yeah. And and I hope you know I’m excited. I’m really excited about it to be able to

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Nurses Direct: better piece together all pieces of the puzzles to be able to recruit recruit nurses better. And I don’t like using this word, but profile nurses, tendencies where they want to work. Each individual nurse, because, like, I say my motto, I’ll go back to one nurse at a time.

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Nurses Direct: I like to develop that relationship, have that basis and that foundation with them. Because if if you spend the time in the beginning, it’s gonna last for a longevity a long, long time. If you you try to cut corners and

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Nurses Direct: you know they see through it.

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Nurses Direct: If you care they they’ll they’ll they’ll know they know you care, you know, and I do. I

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Nurses Direct: I legitimately care about my my environment like I said.

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Nurses Direct: I can’t have I. There’s only 168 h in a week, so I’m not physically capable of doing that, but every opportunity that I have, if I have to put out a far, I’ll do it, and they know my whole. All my staff knows

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Nurses Direct: call you. We need you to call him in, and I’ll do every I mean I will, because that’s what got me here. I’m not gonna change.

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Nurses Direct: I’m not going to change what’s working.

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Anthony Codispoti: Michael, I want to be the 1st to thank you for sharing both your time and your story with us today. I really appreciate it.

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Nurses Direct: Well, I mean, I enjoyed this also. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it.

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Anthony Codispoti: Folks. That’s a wrap on another episode of the inspired stories. Podcast thanks for learning. With us today.