Travel Acute Care Nurse Jobs

The agencies on Vivian that currently have the most Travel Acute Care Nurse jobs are Vibra Travels (188), PHP (24), and Host Healthcare (12).

As of Saturday, May 18th 2024, Vivian has 47 Staff Nursing jobs listed. These jobs pay $43 per hour on average, with the highest-paying job listed up to $55 per hour.

Take a look at Vivian's Travel Acute Care Nurse Career Guide for more information, including required education, responsibilities, pros and cons and more.

An acute care nurse is a registered nurse who specializes in treating patients with short-term but serious conditions who need immediate assistance. They may be called on to treat a wide array of severe injuries and illnesses, from med-surg patients, to car accident victims, to strokes. Acute care nursing is a rewarding yet challenging career path due to the time-sensitive, critical situations they’re often thrust into.

Acute care nurses provide advanced nursing care to patients with acute conditions, such as heart attacks, life-threatening diabetes complications, respiratory distress, heat exhaustion, or any other serious condition that suddenly appears. They may also care for preoperative and postoperative patients. Acute care nurses assess and monitor their patients’ conditions, develop ongoing care plans, and update these plans, as necessary. Common acute care nursing tasks include:

Acute care nurses work in a variety of clinical settings where emergency or critical care is provided. Specific places acute care nurses may work include emergency rooms, ambulatory care units, intensive care units, trauma centers, long-term care organizations, and surgery centers, among others. They may also work with a travel nursing agency.

Because they deal with so many patients who present with a huge array of conditions, good acute care nurses have advanced practice clinical expertise in caring for diverse patient populations and work well under pressure. Acute care nurses often work with limited patient data, so they possess strong clinical judgment and critical thinking skills to determine care priorities. They thrive in high-stress situations and excel at observation and problem-solving, so they can quickly alter treatments as soon as adverse problems arise. Above-average acute care nurses also have excellent communication skills that allow them to convey data clearly to other medical professionals and relay important information to patients’ family members with compassion.

To become an acute care nurse, either an associate degree in nursing or a Bachelor of Science in Nursing is required. Graduates of accredited nursing programs must pass the NCLEX-RN exam and fulfill all state licensing requirements to become licensed RNs.

Acute care nurses may hold Basic Life Support (BLS) and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS), among others.