Healthcare Staffing: Balancing Internal vs. External Solutions

Effective healthcare staffing practices are fundamental to providing high-quality patient care. Finding and retaining top talent allows your team to focus on patients without the risk of burning out. However, the current healthcare staffing shortage can make it challenging to accomplish, with more than 30% of hospitals struggling to find qualified candidates for critical roles.

That’s why it’s more important than ever to use a mix of internal and external hiring solutions to manage your staffing levels. Keep reading to learn how these solutions differ and how to balance them effectively in your practice.

The Difference Between Internal and External Hiring Solutions

There are two fundamental ways to find qualified people for a role in your practice. You can look externally, searching for candidates who already fit your needs. Or the alternative solution is to improve internal staffing factors, like reducing the necessary qualifications or providing training to increase the skills of existing staff.

Both solutions have merit. With external hiring solutions, you can find candidates already qualified for the role and slot them into your practice with minimal training. However, when talent is in high demand, external hiring can be time-consuming and leave you with open positions while you search for qualified applications. These external solutions can include:

• Working with a staffing agency to hire full-time employees

• Actively recruiting new full-time staff

• Using "talent as a service" networks to get on-demand help just during peak demand

Meanwhile, internal hiring takes training time, but it allows you to teach people within your practice, building loyalty and ensuring a good personality fit. These solutions may include:

• Investing in tech upgrades

• Revising training procedures

• Providing up-skilling in-house to current employees

How to Balance External and Internal Hiring Solutions in Healthcare

Neither internal nor external hiring solutions can solve healthcare staffing issues independently. Sometimes, you need a role filled as quickly as possible, and you don’t have time to implement internal solutions to fill it. Meanwhile, relying entirely on external solutions may lead to wasted time and open positions that you could have filled by improving internal staffing factors.

By understanding your current staffing needs, you can balance the two healthcare staffing solutions instead to build a balanced internal and external staffing strategy.

First, identify critical positions that need to be filled immediately and earmark these for external hiring. You can fill these roles by working with an experienced staffing partner like MedCerts.

Second, investigate your current hierarchy to find roles that will likely need to be filled in the future. This includes positions with high turnover or which are filled by someone nearing retirement. These positions are ideal targets for internal solutions such as upskilling or apprenticeship programs. MedCerts can help you determine the right internal healthcare staffing solution for your practice.

Reduce Healthcare Staffing Stress with Balanced Solutions

The best way to address a long-standing staffing shortage is to remember your short-term and long-term needs. With a blended internal and external staffing strategy, you can ensure your practice has the staff you need when you need them.

MedCerts can help you find the right balance for your practice. In MedCerts, you’ll find an experienced staffing partner offering both external hiring help and in-house apprenticeship and up-training support. Get in touch today to learn more about how MedCerts can help you solve your staffing struggles.