Recruitment and Retention of Healthcare Professionals - Essay Example

The paper addresses the challenges facing employee recruitment and retention in the health care industry from an administrator’s perspective.

Scope of the Senior Project
The research will be aimed at ascertaining the challenges that make the respondents (health care providers) leave health care organizations. Other objectives will be related to research topics such as shortage of primary care physicians, trends in the nursing workforce, staff turnover, retention, and staffing in B.J.C HealthCare organization in Missouri, USA.

Discussion
According to Beck, Boulton, Lemmings, and Clayton, (2012), 69% of health care organizations report substantial difficulties in regards to retaining employees with crucial skills compared to 43% of the organizations in other industries. Most of the health care employees link their lack of motivation to the stressful situations that the health care facilities offer, shortage of nurses and therapists leading to overworking, and the abundance of more lucrative opportunities overseas for the health care personnel.
Recruitment
The basic barrier faced when recruiting primary health care providers is the shortage of primary care physicians. The shortage is caused by increased demand due to retirements, provider mal-distribution, and increased use of the physicians in managed care health plans, and the changing trends of the young physicians (Herrick, 2010). The practice also harbors a significant number of women that pose unique practice needs e.g. family leave and child care. Therefore, B.J.C Health Care Organization should establish an efficient hiring mechanism that can ensure gender balance when recruiting the health care workforce. The high cost of health care training programs makes many professionals engage in the practice for loan repayment purposes; not passion. The retention rate of such people is relatively low.

Retention
After successful recruitment, the administrator must apply all the necessary strategies for retaining employees in the organization. Retention issues arise due to lack of professional support, poor coverage for medical education and vacation, excessive paperwork, long working hours, inadequate reimbursement, lack of community support, and insufficient access to support and technical services among others (Merhi, 2009). Retaining health care providers requires the administrator to make sure that providers feel supported and wanted. An organized provider retention program should start from quality matching when recruiting and enhancing communication in assessing whether the employee expectations are being met.

Staff Turnover
The staff turnover in health care organizations is relatively high compared to organizations in other sectors. This is because most health care organizations incur huge expenses that compromise the healthy working environment for the employees (Merhi, 2009). The high turnover rates can only be averted if the health care administrator applies strategic measures that primarily aim to motivate the employees.

Trends in the Nursing Work Force
The trend has been indicated by the baby boomers who are seeking retirement at a higher level compared to other professionals (Beck, Boulton, Lemmings, and Clayton, 2012). The current shortage of qualified nurses indicates that the future is set for shortages in the health care workforce as well as decreased retention rates. According to Herrick (2010), the current crop of workers prefers professions that offer abundant free time, and health care is not among them.

Staffing Patterns
Ascertaining the workload for the health care professionals is difficult because the amount of attention required by different patients cannot be quantified (Buchbinder and Shanks, 2007).

Conclusion
The main factors affecting employee retention and recruitment in health care organizations include high staff turnover, trends in the nursing workforce, and staffing patterns. Future research should focus on the methods necessary for overcoming the challenges. Read More