In a panel session at Becker's 14th Annual Meeting, Trevor Strauss, vice president of HWL, a healthcare technology and advisory services company, moderated a discussion focused on workforce and human capital management at hospitals and health systems.
Panelists included:
- Lori Cunningham, vice president of talent acquisition, Beth Israel Lahey Health (Cambridge, Mass.)
- Jeff Cohen, MD, chief clinical operating officer, Hartford (Conn.) Healthcare
- Ane McNeil, senior vice president (Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Ohio) at Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health
- Alex Espinosa, COO, Cleveland Clinic Florida
The panelists shared their latest strategies for workforce management, including a focus on cross-functional team collaboration to break down silos; the use of technology and data analytics in hiring processes; and maintaining a human touch in recruitment and retention efforts. They emphasized the importance of building a strong organizational culture and aligning new hires with that culture, as well as the need for continuous innovation and adaptability in the face of changing needs in healthcare.
Success stories on addressing staffing and cost challenges — with initiatives like in-house traveler programs for nursing, career ladder and development programs, and pilot virtual care models, reentry programs and education programs — were shared as well. Intentionally building the workforce pipeline emerged as a key theme throughout the session. Below are key takeaways from the panelists' discussion.
Editor's note: Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
Key takeaways:
1: Hospitals and health systems working cross-departmentally to build their own workforce pipeline is "the way of the future."
Lori Cunningham: "Our system CNO is working very strategically with talent strategy. The way we have devised ourselves as an HR leadership team is that talent strategy is everything you can imagine. It's from talent acquisition to workforce development to leadership development, to learning and training, succession planning — with the goal of creating our own clinical excellence institute."
2: Technology is playing an increasing role in the hiring process, but there are limitations when it comes to identifying whether a candidate is the right fit.
Alex Espinosa: "No matter the technology platform that you use, you can never take the personal touch out of recruitment. I think that hiring for culture rather than experience is very important, and I don't think that will ever be accomplished by technology."
3: Engaging new hires early on can help to build long-term commitment and ensure they embody the organization's culture.
Jeff Cohen, MD: "We're a just cause culture. All these things are words and phrases, but you have to live it every day. And we do: I have our leadership behavior card that I carry around everyday — HCW leadership behaviors, 10 principles, which you learned in kindergarten basically — and we teach it to everybody. Every single person in our organization, when they come in, are taught those principles and we hold each other to it."
4: Healthcare organizations should continuously adapt and try new retention strategies, which, for new hires — a particularly challenging group to retain — should emphasize support.
Ane McNeil: "Our bedside nurses are largely made up of graduate nurses. They're partnered with a virtual nurse, who has to have eight-plus years of experience to become a virtual nurse, and then an LPN, which we're bringing back into our acute care setting, or a certified nurse. That makes up a three-person care model. On this one particular neuro unit, we went from 60% turnover to about 14% today. It's not perfect. And that's the thing that we have to remember to do this work: We can't be perfect."