The human resources department may not be the first department in a health system that comes to mind in the transition to value-based care, but it is increasingly being seen as a source for potential innovation.
According to an annual survey by HealthcareSource and the American Society of Healthcare Human Resources Association (ASHHRA), from new screening and shadowing programs to retention and continuing education, human resources is key to managing healthcare reform goals.
Among top priorities for healthcare HR departments, the survey found, are streamlining processes, improving employee retention and satisfaction, fostering accountability, building support for a service-oriented mission and – key to it all – hiring for a “cultural fit.”
In many places, healthcare workers are in demand but at the same time, with many young people seeing healthcare as a solid job, health systems may have a large candidate pool – which can be a benefit or a challenge, especially when it comes to hiring for cultural fit.
When they’re not a fit, the turnover is costly. When, say, a nurse leaves after a few months on the job, the resulting loss of time and investment in new hiring can cost one or even two times the equivalent of the staffer’s salary, according to HealthcareSource.
To ensure that the first person hired for a position is the right one, some health systems are using a combination of behavior assessments, pre-hiring shadow programs and ongoing cross-department conversations between human resources and clinical. When filling clinical positions, it also helps if HR leaders have worked in patient care.
Those are some of the tactics Virginia Commonwealth University Health System has been using to good effect, said Teri Kuttenkuler, HR service line director for patient care services and a registered nurse.
“My role is really as a liaison between HR and nursing,” said Kuttenkuler, who’s worked at VCU for 32 years, most of them as a nurse before moving to human resources a decade ago.
One approach that’s “gathered steam in the last year” is a shadowing program, Kuttenkuler said. Many VCU managers in clinical and other areas have done it for years, but more are seeing the value in addressing the retention and cultural fit problems, she said.
“The candidate knows what they’re getting into and the unit gets a chance to meet the candidate. They can ask questions at the bedside and work with the team,” she said.
Another tool they’re using is a candidate screening survey, to include when someone’s applying for leadership positions. In one case, Kuttenkuler said, a nursing director had concerns regarding some weaknesses in teamwork she was aware of with a known external applicant for a leadership position. The interview seemed to go well, but the director’s concerns were partly confirmed in the screening survey.
In the effort to improve retention, Kuttenkuler said she and colleagues have been trying to expand the professional advancement and education program. For instance, VCU recently added a fifth tier in its advancement program with the hope that master’s trained nurses will continue to work at the bedside rather than move on to other jobs.
Strategies like those used at VCU are essential for attracting and keeping the “right” people on staff, but are also practical processes considering the continued pressure on budgets and the need to do more with less and to deliver services efficiently and cost effectively, said Michael DiPietro, chief marketing officer at HealthcareSource, in an email.
To better accommodate those pressures, said DiPietro, there has been a growing interest in adopting technology that allows for automating some processes to cut costs and reduce the burden of manual work.
“When HR teams succeed in recruiting and retaining the right employees through the right technology solutions, healthcare organizations are in a stronger position to deliver quality care – translating into high levels of cost efficiency, patient safety and satisfaction, and overall HR excellence,” DiPietro said.