Nurses and Professional Healthcare

Healthcare in the Time of COVID

We last checked in with Sis Gilmore in the May 2017 issue focusing on women in business. Since then, much has happened with her business, Nurses and Professional Healthcare.

For those who may need a bit of a refresher on what it is that NPH does, not to worry. Nurses and Professional Healthcare is a nursing registry that provides medical facilities with the staff they need. “We supply nursing staff all over California,” Sis says. “Whether it’s a hospital, skilled nursing facility, assisted living center, or medical facility, and they’re in need of a C.N.A., L.V.N., or R.N., our employees fill in for their staffing shortages.” Since we last spoke with Sis, her business has grown dramatically. “We’ve grown by 35 percent overall,” she says. “There are now 115 facilities and 425 employees that work through NPH. Back in 2017, we were much more specific to Northern California, but we now serve California in general. We have as many facilities to the south as we have to the north.”

NPH has also expanded their physical footprint, moving from their location on Forest Avenue to a custom-built facility in Meriam Park. “We love it,” Sis says. “It’s a secure, progressive, upbeat little section of town, and it’s nice to have our own place.” With growth comes new challenges, and the last few years have been a bit of a rollercoaster ride for the business.

When COVID hit, the demand for nursing staff increased by 30 percent, and the paperwork and hoop-jumping increased tenfold. It seemed that each of the 115 facilities NPH works with had its own regulations, and since one nurse could be at several facilities in a week, that created something of an HR nightmare. “You’re sending people to different facilities, and there are different rules, mask requirements, and vaccination tracking requirements at each one,” Sis says. “It was something else staying on top of everything, and I want to say how much we appreciate the contributions of our nurses and all they do for these different facilities.”

More recently, the employment shortage of the last year or so has had both an equal and an opposite effect on NPH and its facilities than it has on every other industry. California has been experiencing a nursing shortage far longer than it’s been facing an employment crisis, so the demand for nurses at the facilities contracted with NPH, which has always been extremely high, has stayed about the same. That keeps the nurses who work for NPH on the hop, but the benefits they reap from being employed by Sis Gilmore, and not by the facilities themselves, allow these hard working folks a much better quality of life. Instead of being placed on a rotation, as a nurse might be in a hospital or skilled nursing facility, NPH nurses’ time is their own. They provide NPH with their desired hours and locations, and NPH places them accordingly. “It’s a big draw for nurses to come here,” Sis says. “You can go where you want, work the hours you want, and pretty much have your own schedule.”

NPH has recently become a significant sponsor of the Butte Humane Society, and Sis has a special connection to a particular wing of the organization’s new facility. “One of their new wings for the education of young people has been named Katie’s Korner,” she says. For those that know Sis, you may know that she had a beautiful, ambitious, strong-willed daughter named Katie Christofferson. She had recently become an R.N. herself, right before she was tragically taken in an accident last year. Katie, who was much beloved by her family and friends, also had an incredible passion and heart for animals, whom she loved to rescue and care for. With the help of NPH, the legacy of Katie’s vibrant life and her love for animals will live on in Katie’s Korner.

NPH is doing so much for so many healthcare professionals who give tirelessly of themselves to our communities. If you’d like more information, visit NPH online at www.nph.company