Fighting to find nurses, Mercy experiments with Uber's 'gig worker' model

For a 150-year-old St. Louis hospital system, the answer to staffing shortages may be a labor model popularized by Silicon Valley startups.

Since late last year, Chesterfield-based Mercy has been piloting a program in Springfield where both staff nurses and "gig worker" nurses can sign up for shifts through an app. Now the health system is expanding it across all of Mercy.