Rural hospitals face a different flavor of staffing pressure: unpredictable census spikes, limited recruitment pipelines, and fewer internal buffers to absorb turnover events. For these facilities, float pools are not a luxury — they’re risk mitigation.   The issue is that most rural float pools were built reactively, without aligning to service lines or shift demand patterns. The result is over-reliance on agency travelers or excessive overtime when seasonal surges hit.   Op