Omaha branch of medical staffing company confirms layoffs

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - A local company that employs traveling nurses and other healthcare staffing confirmed Wednesday that it recently implemented layoffs.

A Medical Solutions spokeswoman confirmed to 6 News on Wednesday that it had laid off 10% of its “enterprise-wide workforce,” but declined to give a specific number of layoffs or staffing numbers.

According to Glassdoor, which listed the company as No. 16 on its 2023 list of the Best Places to Work, states that Medical Solutions, founded in 2001, has six locations and between 1,000 and 5,000 employees in the Omaha-metro. But the company’s spokeswoman emphasized that the company’s recent layoffs were happening across the entire company, nationwide.

“The reduction was needed at this time as hospitals and healthcare facilities continue to reduce their use of temporary staff coming out of the pandemic,” the spokeswoman said in an email reply to 6 News. “The internal staff reduction is the result of matching our workforce to the demands of our customers post-pandemic. We took several steps to treat all those impacted with dignity and respect, including support through severance and career assistance to help them secure their next position.”

Rewind about two years, and there weren’t enough travel nurses to go around.

In January 2022, 6 News talked with hospital officials from across the state who were growing concerned about maintaining quality of care as Nebraska — and the nation — began experiencing another surge in COVID cases.

That conversation happened on the heels of Nebraska Medicine implementing a crisis plan.

“Our leadership made the difficult decision to activate this plan now because our community’s demand for health care currently exceeds our available resources,” the hospital said in a statement on Jan. 13, 2022.

Methodist Health System was also reporting that their hospitals were seeing some of the highest COVID numbers since the start of the pandemic in March 2020.

That same day, the Douglas County Health Department reported the peak number of COVID cases per 100,000 people ever recorded locally: 2,023.4. The only peak we’ve seen since was 374.6 per 100,000 people, which was reported on Dec. 20, 2022.

—

Managing Editor Kevin Westhues contributed to this report.