Challenge #1: Recruitment
One of the biggest misconceptions about a hospital-employed ED model? That if you want it to excel, your hospital must either manage the ED alone–or hand it off to an outside physician management group. Not so. There are myriad solutions and services available to support and strengthen management of a hospital-employed ED.
On the SCP blog in the coming weeks, we’ll look at four of the most common challenges faced when employing emergency medicine physicians, and we’ll showcase 12 innovative solutions to help you overcome these challenges — no change in model needed.
This week, we’re focusing on the No.1 challenge: recruiting and retention.
Attrition happens. When it does in the ED, the pressure to find outstanding candidates–fast–can exceed the manpower of your recruiting team. What options do you have?
1. THE BIG OBVIOUS (BUT EXPENSIVE AND TIME-CONSUMING) OPTION: Expand your recruiting team. More hands on deck garners better results down the line. If you can afford the time and expense of hiring additional recruiters, expansion is a solid solution with long-term payoff.
2. EXPANSION NOT FEASIBLE? RESTRUCTURE: Divvy up medical specialties among your existing recruiters so that each specializes in only a couple of departments. Narrowing their focus breeds significantly deeper knowledge about each specialty and the assigned clinical teams’ culture, priorities, and needs–all vital to securing high quality hires likely to remain satisfied and committed to your ED team–but it does take time, which can further stress an already-stretched ED team.
3. NEED FASTER RESULTS? Accelerate the process and expand reach by partnering with an organization that specializes in EM physician staffing and management; has a robust, vetted, national and regional recruiting network at the ready; and boasts solid retention rates.
A specialty focused recruiter will eventually speak the same language and truly understand the physicians. This enables more concentrated, rich networking and relationship-building efforts–and, over time, a bigger, better network of candidates.
For a more detailed look at recruiting and keeping dedicated EM physicians, please download our white paper Acquiring and Retaining the best ED Docs: Secrets from a Staffing Leader here.
Stay tuned — in the coming weeks, we’ll delve into three other challenges you might be facing in your hospital-employed ED: leadership and accountability, performance management, and documentation and revenue. You’ll learn:
- What’s holding your ED medical director back from true leadership — and what you can provide to fix it.
- How to continuously monitor your ED’s operational and financial budget — without taxing yourself or your executive staff.
- How to quickly determine if your ED’s RCM is leaving money on the table — and the fastest way to stop the bleeding.
