Photos / Courtesy of Northern Light Health
Catharine MacLaren
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Recruit and retain: Rural hospitals’ creative strategies to secure talent
Photo / Courtesy of Northern Light Health
Attracting talent to rural hospitals is vital to sustaining care in Maine’s communities. These positions account for over 8,600 jobs across rural regions of the state.
Photo / Courtesy of Northern Light Health
In a competitive job market, Maine hospitals are adopting innovative hiring strategies and investing in educational development to attract and retain staff.
Photo / Courtesy of Maine Health
Recruiting for rural hospitals is a high priority in Maine.
Photo / Courtesy of Northern Light Health
In a competitive job market, Maine hospitals are adopting innovative hiring strategies and investing in educational development to attract and retain staff.
By Sloane M. Perron
Health care systems throughout the nation are in a make-or-break moment as they combat soaring costs of labor, drugs and supplies against Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements that are not keeping pace with operational costs, according to the American Hospital Association.
The financial burden combined with understaffed workforces has created a perfect storm, especially for rural hospitals who already must take extra measures to attract new talent to Maine’s low population areas.
The reality of these circumstances is demonstrated by the recent closure of Northern Light Health’s Inland Hospital in Waterville after its operating losses of $1 million to $1.5 million per month became unsustainable. The Waterville hospital cited a tight labor market as a factor.
In an effort to attract top talent to rural areas, hospital systems are deviating from traditional hiring methods and offering creative perks and opportunities to increase recruitment and hold on to staff. Maine’s rural areas lack the medical resources of their urban counterparts, so top-tier workers are essential in providing life-saving care to residents.
Catharine MacLaren, vice president of talent and diversity for Northern Light Health, outlined that some of the staffing shortages in rural areas come from a lack of resources, meaning that more responsibilities fall on the shoulders of current providers. However, rural communities are perfect for professionals who want to see the direct impact of their work in their own communities.
“One of the things that we talk about a lot in recruitment efforts is that sense of community and belonging. You are literally serving your friends and neighbors,” MacLaren says. “It takes a certain type of person to want to be that embedded in a community and delivering care under those circumstances.”
Gone are the days of just posting job openings on websites and expecting results. The recruitment team at Northern Light uses a multitude of methods to actively reach out and engage prospective employees. Targeted social media posts, podcasts, story sharing and engagement surveys with current staff are all part of the hospital’s multi-faceted strategy to recruit and retain long-term talent.
According to MacLaren, in addition to ensuring employees have the right credentials and professional acumen, the team also looks at the candidate as a whole and works with the individual to see what role and location they would most likely thrive in.
“We really have a holistic approach. Who is this person that we’re looking to recruit? What are they looking for?” she explains.“We have a pretty large footprint all the way from South Portland up to Presque Isle, out to Greenville, and then out to Blue Hill, we have all these entities. So, when we are talking with candidates who have the credentials we’re looking for, we really try to work with them to find the best fit, because we want people to stay and be part of our community.”
Career development, job coaching, and furthering education are initiatives that both Northern Light and MaineHealth are using to attract providers who want a future in healthcare. Northern Light’s Sponsorships pay providers full-time while financing their studies to become RNs, CNAs, medical assistants, EMS workers, and more, thereby creating their own pool of trained professionals.
Northern Light Health also received a federal grant via the Northern Border Regional Commission to train respiratory therapists in the rural parts of Maine through a partnership with Kennebec Valley Community College.
MaineHealth efforts
Photo / Courtesy of MaineHealth
Helene Kennedy, MaineHealth
MaineHealth is also implementing creative recruiting strategies. “One of the key priorities at MaineHealth is looking at ways to continue recruiting to our current needs, but also to start looking futuristically about what our needs are going to be and how we’re going to build that pipeline moving forward,” says Helene Kennedy, MaineHealth’s vice president of talent acquisition and workforce.
In addition to MaineHealth’s “earn as you learn” programs which offers paid trainings, tuition reimbursement, and apprenticeships to care members, the hospital system is also targeting high schoolers who envision a future in healthcare. Events like the Scrub Club in Farmington, or the virtual program Inside Medicine, show students what life is like as a clinical professional and provide future career connections. MaineHealth is not just forming outside partnerships, they are also looking inside their organization. About 30% of their current hires came from employee referrals.
In rural areas, patients may face barriers to medical access such as lack of transportation and health literacy. This makes it imperative to find staff members who understand the unique challenges of rural health care, especially when long-term providers retire or move away leaving a void on small teams.
Photo / Courtesy of MaineHealth
Dr. Ryan Knapp
“We do a pretty good job with retention. Once people decide they want to live in a rural community, and they relocate, and get to work with us, I think people really enjoy it,” says Dr. Ryan Knapp, regional vice president of physician and advanced practice provider services at MaineHealth’s mountain region. “The problem is, when somebody leaves for whatever reason, sometimes that’s a big chunk of the care that we provide. For example, we may have three general surgeons in one of our rural communities. So, when one general surgeon leaves, it’s 33% of your capacity that just vanished. Whereas, if you take like a larger group and some of the larger health systems, maybe they have eight general surgeons, so it’s proportionally less of an impact.”
Advancing technology, especially in the world of telehealth, is also changing the way care is administered, allowing patients to have consults with specialists who may be in city hospitals such as Portland. Zoom and AI may also present future remote job opportunities and accessibility to more isolated areas of Maine.
While compensation, location and work environment are motivating factors for recruitment, rural health care offers a “personal touch” that might be lacking in larger systems. Speaking as a doctor in a rural area himself, Knapp believes that working in this environment has allowed him to become an adaptable, creative problem solver, who uses the full scope of his medical training.
“I think there’s a lot of myths about what it’s like to practice in a rural environment. I think keeping an open mind of how it can be a really rewarding place to practice medicine is important,” Knapp says. “Patients are very thankful in the rural environment, their expectations are different, and because of that, you get a lot more positive feedback from your patients than you might in some other practice environments. They really do appreciate everything that our physicians, advanced practice providers, and nurse practitioners do for them.”
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