A Recent Survey Shows Hospitals’ Staffing Struggles
A quick Google search of “hospital staff issues” will give you a multitude of articles bemoaning staffing shortages. One article in particular referenced a 2018 survey by Leaders of Today of over 200 hospital executives, administrators, and HR leaders that offered up some telling data:
- 31% reported they can’t find enough candidates to fill open positions
- 51.6% said they couldn’t find qualified candidates in a reasonable amount of time
- 23.9% reported a quick turnaround on candidate searches but questioned their qualifications
In their survey summary, Leaders of Today stated:
“Data from our newest survey shows that while the healthcare industry continues to have a number of challenges when it comes to staffing, the absence of qualified candidates remains far and away their loudest concern—a far larger issue than originally anticipated.
Candidate shortages, as it turns out, are not specific to hospital size or location. As part of our survey, we examined the hiring situations for hospitals across all shapes and sizes: hospitals with large numbers of beds, critical access hospitals and everything in between. While hiring strategies do vary by size, the underlying results are consistent across all types and locations. When looking to make a hire, finding enough qualified candidates is a real problem across the board.”
In other words, hospital staffing issues are consistently widespread. More importantly, this has the potential to affect the quality of patient care, now and going forward.
Thinking Outside the Hospital Staffing Box
The survey’s conclusion pointed to a variety of challenges facing hospitals, which includes HR department strategies and employee retention, but they also noted that “Equally important is rethinking how recruitment and hiring works best in a world with a shortage of talent.”
One potential solution is partnering with training companies like MedCerts to staff those entry-level positions. The traditional ways of filling those positions obviously aren’t cutting it: hospitals can’t just post for jobs and hope the right candidate applies, or just work through staffing agencies. By working hand-in-hand with a training company, they can ensure they get qualified/certified candidates right off the bat, or just train the non-qualified individuals that already work at their facility.
It’s an innovative way for hospital leaders to approach hiring, and to create a built-in staffing pipeline for critical positions through what is basically a hospital training program. And many will be forced to do this ASAP as the needs we discussed in the opening will only continue to grow.
MedCerts Offers 11 Entry-Level Healthcare Certifications
At MedCerts, we currently offer the following entry-level healthcare certifications that would allow newly certified candidates to work in a hospital setting:
- CPCT Certified Patient Care Technician
- CET Certified EKG Technician
- CPT Certified Phlebotomy Technician
- CCMA Certified Clinical Medical Assistant
- Radiation Health and Safety and Infection Control Exams
- RBT Registered Behavioral Technician
- CPC Certified Professional Coder
- CPhT Certified Pharmacy Technician
- CMAA Certified Medical Administrative Assistant
- CEHRS Certified Electronic Health Records Specialist
- MCBC Medical Coder & Biller Certification
Our programs ensure that our certified students have the skills needed to thrive in a variety of healthcare-related environments, and position them to increase their earning potential. That’s why a partnership between us and hospitals is a clear win-win: you end up with more highly qualified candidates, and they get to start a promising new career.
Want to Partner With MedCerts?
At MedCerts, we work with a variety of partners to ensure our students are placed in jobs, externships, internships, or entry-level training jobs. To learn more, visit our Student Services page, or get in touch to see how we can help solve any hospital staffing shortages.
