Crisis assignments for travel nurses are designed to support hospitals and healthcare facilities, during or after a crisis. The need is often immediate and unexpected, as the crisis might involve a natural disaster, a pandemic like COVID-19, or other unknown events that need higher staff levels to provide quality patient care. Some crisis contracts may be project-based assignments.

Depending on the situation at individual facilities, crisis travel nursing assignments are often available for those specializing in emergency nursing, critical care, preoperative nursing, labor and delivery, medical-surgical nursing and other nursing specialties.