From the front lines of the pandemic battle to hospital backlogs, a heritage brand of healthcare staffing — Premier Healthcare Professionals — has strengthened its network to address employment demands to underserved geographic markets.

Long a leader in the travel and contract nursing industry, Premier Healthcare Professionals (PHP) has exhibited unparalleled expertise in placing dedicated nursing professionals in the United States and overseas.

PHP identifies needs and growing trends in anticipation of market shifts and client strategic paradigms, allowing it to readily provide solutions that make fiscal, operational and professional sense. It provides relevant geographic presence and strategies to incorporate into clients’ capabilities and support service platforms across the globe.

Looking at the sheer number of travel nursing jobs in California, it is clear that it is significantly larger than other states, making it the No. 1 market for Travel Nursing. This is because California has the largest population — 39.78 million residents — while having the greatest shortage of nurses nationwide — not to mention the numerous hospitals and other healthcare facilities that need these nurses.

“In line with our strategic growth plan, we are making a number of investments in California, as well as in different states in the country, to support the continued demand of hospitals in order to provide continual, consistent and outstanding customer service which is key to growth and profitability,” says Chris Eales, CEO and founder of PHP.

“We are structured to provide access and alternatives to innovative solutions for human capital, logistics, operations, and financial challenges for diverse and/or complex work environments, often reserved for larger corporations around the world. We address and enhance the domestic and international Human Capital demands of the dynamic Healthcare work environment.”

PHP’s priority is seeking domestic and international market leading and highly-skilled talent for high-demand Healthcare positions. “Our global recruiting network provides unique insight into the labor and service cycles, as well as our niche service industries,” Eales says. PHP attracts the top 1% of the available and professional talent across many jurisdictions and works closely with clients to “develop meaningful recruitment and staff retention strategies that have a material impact on the bottom line, as well as their candidate’s careers.”

Across its quarter-century in nurse staffing, PHP (travelphp.com) recognizes that Registered Nurses — more than 3.8 million nationwide — aren’t simply a massive number of esoteric employees, but rather a massive number of special people.

“We pay nurses more, we offer them better benefits and we provide impeccable service. Nurses are an amazing group of professionals. Anybody can pay them, but we look after them — and that’s not just through compensation. Our service standards see us in constant communication with the nurses. This industry is about service.” Chris Eales, CEO and founder of PHP

PHP places enhanced focus on not only compensation and benefits for its traveling nurses, but also significant focus on job facets ranging from relocation and housing, to sign-on and completion bonuses to licensing and educational reimbursements. The business of contract nursing, often placing RNs with initial 13-week assignments, structures the nurses as employees of PHP; the nurses are then, in essence, leased to hospitals around the globe. The results are recognized by PHP’s geographic spread of placement across all 50 states, and overseas; presently, PHP has over 1,000 nurses in the international pipeline waiting to come into the U.S.

Further success is seen via PHP’s nurse retention rate. “It’s a relationship business, from the nurses to the recruiters to our clients, and also with the nurses and the clients. Culture plays an important part in what we do,” Eales adds. “I built PHP based on certain criteria, the most important of which is that we only employ quality nurses. We try and pick the cream of the crop and get them properly placed. And that belief is borne out by our 85% job retention rate with all of our nurses.”

The onset months of the novel coronavirus pandemic found PHP well-positioned for a surge in need across the nursing industry. “From February through July, the nursing demand was COVID-related, which was huge,” Eales says, “and over the last few months, we’ve started to see a rebuild of the non-COVID activities.”

A return to elective surgeries and diagnostic work has seen the staffing swell even further. The demand for healthcare services and applicable staffing continues to increase, “and we’ve been riding that wave,” Eales adds. “In well over 20 years in this field, I’ve never seen such a need as we witnessed in the spring and summer. My group as a whole is 70 percent higher than it was at this time last year — and that’s not all COVID-related.”

Rather than being undone or intimidated by unprecedented times, PHP, akin to a cherished nurse, has displayed grace, mettle and growth amid times of turbulence. “I’ve been involved with PHP for 23 years, having owned the company outright for the last decade,” Eales concludes. “And we’ve seen some interesting times, obviously, in the health care staffing market. We’ve been through a recession and we’re now, of course, in the COVID-era. No two days are the same, but the last five-to-ten years have been very positive for our work.”

This article was edited and published by Rick Weinberg, California Business Journal’s Founder and Editor-in-Chief. Click here for Rick Weinberg’s biography.

To read the magazine version of this article, click here.