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Health Care Matters is edited by Karen A. Hart, RN, BSN, and Sandy Haeberle, RN

800.582.4668
e-mail: healthcare@hodes.com

The Year in Health Care Recruitment

by Karen A. Hart, RN, BSN
SVP, Health Care Division

One of the most challenging assignments for us every year is distilling the year’s events in health care, recruitment and at Hodes Health Care into a short update. Nonetheless, it is one of our favorite projects.

 

Overview

We reported on the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in last year’s summary, and are on our way this week to a celebration of New Orleans nurses, the Johnson & Johnson Campaign for Nursing’s Future gala: The Promise of Nursing for Louisiana. This event will honor Louisiana nurses, whose work was so pivotal during Katrina, and will raise scholarships for students and faculty. Bernard Hodes Group is proud to be a sponsor of this event.  

The economy was relatively unchanged from last year, although the unemployment rate dropped to a five year low of 4.4% in October, compared to 5.0% in October of 2005. Hospital employment rose 0.14% in October 2006. Hospitals employed 89,500 more people than a year ago.

A cover article in Business Week September 14, “What is Really Propping up the Economy?” (Featuring Rosie the Riveter as nurse on the cover) noted that the bulk of new jobs in the nation are in the health care industry. Since 2001, the health care industry has added 1.7 million new jobs, while the rest of the economy has languished in terms of job growth. In non-health care industries, off shoring and outsourcing continue to pose huge challenges to those seeking jobs or planning careers stateside as have mergers, downsizing and layoffs in many industries.

Data released on August 29, 2006 by the Census Bureau show that the number of uninsured Americans stood at a record 46.6 million in 2005, with 15.9 % of Americans lacking health coverage. This huge number of uninsured places additional burdens on the health care system, and there are reports of many health systems putting programs in place to provide free preventative care for the uninsured to offset the potential need for acute care if this preventative care was not in place. 

In June The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released a seminal study of the aging nurse workforce, “Wisdom at Work: The Importance of the Older and Experienced Nurse in the Workplace”. This study provides an excellent roadmap for retaining the older nurse (and indeed, all nurses) in the health care system and underscores the importance of addressing the needs of the older workforce. This important research can be downloaded at no cost at: http://www.rwjf.org/files/publications/other/wisdomatwork.pdf

In other nursing news, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, in its annual report in December of 2005, reported enrollments in entry-level baccalaureate nursing programs had increased by 13% from 2004-2005. However, 32,617 qualified applicants were denied entrance due primarily to a shortage of nurse educators. The numerous initiatives to increase interest in nursing careers have once again been a resounding success; and again we are faced with the issue of insufficient faculty and clinical space for those interested in nursing as a career.

Shortages continued in nursing and several allied health professional groups, which were noted in the Health Care Division quarterly competitive intelligence reports, Ad Roundup. We saw an increase in incentives and ads for ED RNs, imaging professionals (after a slight down tick last year), all rehab professionals and respiratory therapists. A new addition in terms of increased advertising and incentives was medical laboratory professionals. We also began to see an increase in client requests for help with physician recruitment as the imminent shortage of physicians and the hiring of hospitalists and intensivists became top of mind.

Some union activity occurred in the way of a few nursing strikes and hospitals and health systems continued to deal with demanding regulations and labor-intensive data collection.

 

Client work

Our work with our clients continued to foster close relationships through consultation, collaboration, and by means of process improvement initiatives like Mystery Shops and Talent Management Interviews (offer accepted, offer rejected, post hire and exit interviews). We also presented numerous Boot Camps at client facilities for both recruitment staff and hiring managers to enhance knowledge in the recruitment arena. Our annual conference and recognition calendars were distributed to our clients and we continued to distribute our bi-weekly Health Care Division e-News update to our branches and clients along with the quarterly Ad Roundup.

 

Presentations & Conferences

Our team was active on the speaking circuit, with presentations at many local, regional, and national conferences, including AACN’s NTI, NSNA, NAHCR, Kennedy Conferences, and The Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development. We also presented a webinar in partnership with Human Capital Management on Mystery Shops and another webinar with Kennedy on recruitment process.

We also exhibited at a number of national conferences, where we networked with old and new friends, discussed innovative health care recruitment solutions, and contributed via presentations and/or sponsorships. We sponsored our annual Friday evening reception at the NAHCR conference in Boston, and co-sponsored the President’s reception at the ASHHRA meeting in Nashville. We presented RN Work Environment survey results and co-sponsored a reception for recruiters at NTI in Anaheim.

 

Research

We conducted two major surveys this year in conjunction with the Hodes Research Department and external partners. The first, a study of the aging RN workforce, was conducted in partnership with Nursing Management. The 980 nurse leaders responding to this survey indicated the previous research by Peter Buerhaus and others was right on the money in terms of when crunch time will come with nursing retirements. Also, we were able to get a good sense of when the nursing leaders themselves are planning to retire along with a snapshot of benefits, programs and ergonomic aids currently in use in the health care arena. Look for the cover story “Special Report: Aging Workforce” analyzing the survey which ran in the July issue of Nursing Management. This survey along with a recruiter checklist can be downloaded at no charge on the Hodes Health Care site.

The second survey was conducted in partnership with the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses and Nursing Spectrum/NurseWeek and sought to determine critical care nurses’ perceptions of their working environments. Our over 4,000 respondents provided us with insights about workplace violence, communication, collaboration, and retention hot buttons such as floating, overtime, and educational and career development support. The preliminary article about this survey appeared in the October issue of Critical Care Nurse. We also featured survey results in the October issue of Health Care Matters. Additional articles are planned, including one contrasting Beacon Units and Magnet Hospitals.

 

Publications/Press

We were interviewed by several publications this year, including Nursing Spectrum, NurseZone, and the Dallas Morning News. We contributed to articles in Critical Care Nurse, and the St. Petersburg Times health care supplement, among other publications. 

This year we also entered into a new partnership with Nursing Economic$ by means of a bi-monthly sponsored column called Human Resource Solutions. Every two months a Health Care Division team member will author an article about HR/recruitment geared to the CNO/CEO readers of this journal. Columns thus far have explored human capital management and mystery shops/process. Our next column covers metrics. Contact the health care division at healthcare@hodes.com if you would like a pdf of any of these articles.

 

Non-Health Care Mystery Shop

In an effort to gauge what the application and recruitment processes are like in other industries, we conducted a non-solicited Mystery Shop of five major industries (high tech, banking, retail, hospitality (restaurants and hotels). We selected two major players in each industry and submitted one resume and made one phone call to each company. We also conducted a web site analysis of each company. Our findings were rather shocking, if not unexpected, and we will be publishing an article about this experience soon.

 

Summary

Thanks to our dedicated health care team for another incredible year. We also extend our continued thanks to all our clients and friends in the health care recruitment community. Your needs are our major focus and have led to the development of many of our strategies and solutions. We treasure our partnership with each and every one of you. Thank you for your support, friendship and loyalty through the years. We know 2007 will bring new challenges and we look forward to meeting them.

 

The Hodes Health Care Division Team

Karen A. Hart, RN, BSN
Sandy Haeberle, RN
Kate Christmas, RN
Cathy Swenson, RN, BSN
Margie Kasse
Stephen G. Mitchell
Tari Pierce

To contact a Hodes Health Care team member, call us at 800-582-4668 or email us at healthcare@hodes.com