American
Nursing Services Batting 1.000
In Connecting Hospitals and Nurses
Written by John Fries
It was an interesting summer at Wrigley Field. Sammy Sosa is still
the man. A few great players came our way this past season; most notably,
Kenny Lofton, Randall Simon and Aramis Ramirez from the Pirates. The
Cubs made the playoffs. And let's not forget Ozzy Osbourne trying
valiantly to fill Harry Caray's shoes one memorable evening during
the seventh inning stretch. The video of him singing something that
sounded vaguely like "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" snagged
him the heaviest airplay he's gotten in years.
While Cubs fans reminisce about the season gone by and look forward
to what next spring holds in store--just a few short blocks from Wrigley,
Sam and Fred Dardick are consistently batting a thousand, hitting
grand slams, and building their own fan base. The brothers, Evanston
natives and avid Cubs fans, are owners of American Nursing Services,
a permanent placement nurse staffing company that provides full-time
nursing personnel for hospitals, home health care companies, nursing
homes and other businesses.
Since starting the company two years ago, they've built an impressive
client list, placing scores of nurses into new work environments.
ItÕs a win-win-win situation for the company, the clients and the
nurses, something President Sam Dardick attributes to his company's
focus on meeting, even exceeding, customer expectations.
"Customer satisfaction is key," he said, "We recruit
the best nurses available, primarily through word-of-mouth, and ask
them what kind of work they want they want to do and how much they
want to be paid. Before the client even sees a nurse's resume, we
ensure the nurse's credibility and employability by doing thorough
background, criminal and reference checks. We only provide good, qualified
people."
Once Dardick matches a nurse to a health care facility, the facility
isn't billed until after the first thirty days of employment. This
to make sure that the facility and the nurse are satisfied. Then,
he goes a major step forward by providing the facility with something
that's virtually unprecedented in the recruitment field: a six-month
guarantee.
"We tell our clients that if a nurse leaves at any time before
his or her first six months are up, we'll replace that nurse at no
charge. Most recruiters provide a three-month guarantee. We double
that, because we want to build long-term, mutually satisfying relationships
with the clients we serve."
For a hospital or nursing home that relies heavily on a pool of temporary
nurses, a relationship with American Nursing Services can result in
substantial cost savings. Some hospitals spend millions of dollars
annually to hire temp nurses, when they could save $60,000 to $70,000
per nurse by hiring permanent nurses through DardickÕs company.
Dardick mentioned one recent situation in which he recruited a nurse
with excellent credentials, placed her in a better paying position
at a Chicago hospital than the job she'd held previously, got her
a generous signing bonus--and, at the same time, saved the hospital
over $70,000 in temporary nursing costs.
American Nursing Services provides nursing personnel at all levels
of staffing, including vice presidents, directors, managers and patient
floor nurses. They currently contract with many local healthcare organizations,
and receive a significant amount of repeat business. After recently
placing three operating room nurses at one local hospital they were
subsequently asked by the facility to recruit PACU and endoscopy nurses.
The Dardick brothers bring a diverse and eclectic background to their
roles. Sam, who holds a Bachelor's degree from Columbia College and
a Master's degree from the Illinois Institute of Technology, has a
solid background in marketing, business development, product management
and consulting. Previously, he held consulting positions at Ernst
& Young and KPMG, and also worked for a time at SBC. His passion
is problem solving, something he does for his clients on a daily basis.
Fred Dardick is a Stanford-educated molecular biologist who worked
in hospitals--including Northwestern University and the University
of Chicago--for several years, and saw firsthand a large degree of
nursing turnover and the need for a better staffing organization.
This led the Dardicks to launch American Nursing Services in February
2001.
Sam
serves as the companyÕs client liaison and Fred recruits the nurses.
Together, they bring a tremendous amount of innovation to the local
nurse recruitment arena. They have enjoyed a great deal of success,
along with the opportunity to consider expansion into other geographic
markets that could easily benefit from the services they provide.
That may eventually happen someday, said
Sam,
but right now, their goal is to continue expanding locally.
"We want to become the premier nurse staffing company in Chicago,"
said Sam Dardick.
