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Temp nurses go digital

Examining gig care in US nursing homes

Bibliographic Data

ID2250193
AuthorsChia Yu Lien (0000-0003-2232-4295, Department of Anthropology Washington University in St. Louis St. Louis Missouri USA, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume45
Issue3
Pages542-559
Publication date2023-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociology of Health & Illness (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0141-9889 • E-ISSN: 1467-9566
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-9566.13600
PMID36575601
OpenAlexW4312213789
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited38

Nursing homes in the United States have long struggled with a shortage of nurses, which has now been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis. In response to the shortage, nursing homes have increasingly used temporary services to fill nursing vacancies. Existing studies have examined the care provided by temporary nurses from traditional staffing agencies; however, at the time of writing, no studies have examined care provided by their counterparts from digital gig platforms. This article reports the findings from 15 months of fieldwork (6/2019-8/2019; 6/2020-5/2021) at two US nursing homes, both characterised by high gig-nurse usage. I asked the following questions: how nurses engage in and perceive gig services, and how the use of gig services affects the work environment and everyday care. The findings indicate that gig services (1) offer gig nurses monetary incentives at the expense of exaggerating the budget deficit of nursing homes, (2) increase gig nurses' working autonomy while creating a loophole in managerial oversight, (3) lead to an uneven distribution of duties between gig nurses and nursing home staff, which demoralises the latter. Taken together, gig services, while empowering the gig nurses, have resulted in the precarisation of nursing home staffing and care environments

Autonomy · Business · Economic shortage · Government (linguistics) · Incentive · Nurse education · Nursing shortage · Political science · Staffing · Digital Economy and Work Transformation · Geriatric Care and Nursing Homes · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Medicine · Nursing

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Unique citing works8
Citations per year2,67
Citation span2023 - 2025 (3)
Citation velocityrecent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 7
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