Shawnika Howell has been a nurse for 13 years, primarily in long-term care, but around the time of the winter 2021 COVID-19 surge, she decided to find some extra work through something new: an app called Clipboard. 

The app lets nurses and nurse aides book individual shifts for a set number of hours with health care facilities, get paid, and move on to the next gig. Essentially, it’s Uber for nursing. 

At first, Howell was attracted to the substantial and quick by-the-hour pay. Like other gig work apps, the rates health care facilities offer increase with demand. When she joined in 2021, gas prices were high, and nurses had been stepping away from their careers in droves, naming burnout and safety concerns as some of the reasons for leaving the profession. Apps like Clipboard offered nurses premium pay and the flexibility to choose the facilities they wanted to work for. 

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