A number of hospitals and other organizations are using online auctions to fill temporary employment openings. Health care workers, such as nurses, perform similar duties in specific health care settings in most hospitals. For example, the duties performed by an intensive care unit nurse are almost identical across hospitals. State regulations on nurse licensing require that nurses have similar levels of knowledge, skills, and abilities I laving similar job functions in workplaces and having similarly qualified persons working in those jobs allows both nurses and employers to treat the nursing function as a commodity, Therefore, nurses can easily work for a variety of employers and do not require long periods of training or learning procedures specific to a particular hospital. In the past, nurse agencies would coordinate placement, matching nurses who wanted to work particular days or shifts with hospitals and other health care organizations who had shifts to fill. The agency would earn a commission on each placement. Today, employers operate their own shift auctions. Nurses bid on the shifts they would prefer to work and the software manages the auctions. In an efficient matching of supply and demand, employers meet their staffing needs efficiently, nurses get to work when they want, and the agency fee is avoided