Leadership

The intense competition to hire for healthcare organizations shows no signs of abating, as demand for care increases while more baby boomers are retiring every day. As a result, too often healthcare companies find themselves hiring haphazardly, taking into account a candidate’s qualifications but not how they will fit with the company’s culture.

A new mindset is to have a “holistic” recruiting strategy. It’s an idea that has been talked about in broader human resources circles, but is just making its way to the healthcare sector. Here’s what you need to know.

Last week, the 22nd Health Care Compliance Association (HCCA) Compliance Institute was held in Las Vegas, Nevada. Over 3,000 healthcare compliance professionals gathered at the single most comprehensive healthcare compliance conference. Besides learning about the latest developments and priorities from regulators, the Compliance Institute offers networking opportunities and educational tracks to help attendees strengthen their organization’s compliance program.

Healthcare relies on collaboration. Each role in the healthcare organization plays a vital part in a patient’s care, and when people work together well, the organization thrives. Building winning healthcare teams is key to an organization’s success, even if it’s not always easy to do, especially at scale.

The 2017 American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration (ASHHRA) Conference took place this past week in the Emerald City of Seattle, Washington. This year’s theme was “Partnering Across the Continuum of Care: The Changing Role of Healthcare Human Resources.” The theme emphasizes the importance of increased collaboration between HR and other partners in the healthcare environment as the industry graduates from operating in silos.

Collaboration is vital in healthcare, but it doesn’t just happen. It takes planning and hard work to get people across the continuum of care working together. As a centralized department, healthcare HR is in the perfect position to help coordinate and collaborate across the continuum of care.

As more physicians become employees, they represent a valuable potential resource for healthcare employers. Physicians who can also serve as leaders can help uphold an organization’s culture, mission and values — but only if they know how. Too often they are expected to lead without getting any training on how to do so, experts say.

Healthcare is a complex, ever-changing industry that requires strong, collaborative leadership across the continuum, specifically nursing. It is estimated that there are 3.6 million nurses in the U.S., making the nursing profession the largest segment of our nation’s healthcare workforce.

While the struggle for quality talent continues to rise, managers must search for new ways to motivate and inspire great nurses to become effective, positive leaders in their community.

Practical knowledge and experience will always be important factors in determining top talent in healthcare. However, experts say emotional intelligence (often referred to as EI or EQ)—the ability to perceive, manage and express one’s emotions and to recognize and react appropriately to the emotions of others—is an invaluable social skill successful physicians or nurses should possess to effectively deliver quality patient care. 

With the amount of change going on in healthcare, organizations are looking for strong leaders who can get departments to work together in new ways. But that can be a challenge, experts say, as human resources, medical staff services and other personnel departments may have different ideas of how to guide change.