Finding the right hires for the health care industry.

• Author: Leverant, Jason
• Position: Medicine & Health

OVER the last few years, the explosion of health care-related growth in the U.S. job market has resulted in employers and staffing agencies that work in the industry finding new ways to find qualified candidates, as well as creating strategies for retaining existing employees. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 18% of the 2,600,000 new jobs created in 2015 were in health care, and there was a 30% increase in hospital job growth from 2014-15, which resulted in the addition of 172,000 payroll positions.

However, turnover rates for the health care industry often are higher than the national averages for other job sectors, with the average being 19.2% in 2015, a rise from the 17.7% reported in 2014. As more Americans take advantage of the programs available from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, organizations struggling with employee turnover are seeing their patient care suffer, and this can result in financial repercussions related to their Medicare Star Ratings, a component of the PPACA system that offers rebates to the highest-performing organizations based upon patient engagement.

As a result of staffing shortages and increased workloads for existing staff members, health care organizations often are faced with lower morale and frustrated employees, a higher risk of organizational breakdowns, increased staffing costs related to meeting the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations standards, and minimized productivity as new hires are trained on organizational standards. These factors, combined with data showing that 62% of nurses over the age of 54 are considering retirement within the next three years, are indicative of some of the the difficulties facing the health care industry.

For health care employers and staffing agencies, a large area of concern continues to be the expenditure of time and money in retaining skilled health care professionals, especially in the nursing field. While the U.S. economy continues to show signs of growth, this growth is fueling a battle among organizations related to health care in regards to talent acquisition. In the third quarter of 2015, HCA, the largest hospital operator as defined by revenue, experienced a year-over-year drop in net income that was related to ever-increasing labor costs to meet higher patient volumes in their locations. These problems, which include challenges in recruiting health care staff for emergency rooms and other medical...