Today, many of us rely on GPS systems to get us from one place to another. We tap the destination into our digital device and trust that the GPS will get us there as efficiently as possible, often taking into consideration construction, roadblocks and traffic.
In the world of physician recruitment, the medical staff development plan acts as a GPS, providing guidance on the number of new providers needed for each specialty. When the demand/supply analysis is integrated with medical staff retirements, clinical advancements or competitor dynamics, the plan provides the most efficient road map to our recruitment destination. It connects medical staff resources with the organization’s mission and strategy.
Beyond defining the organization’s three year projected needs, how is the medical staff development plan used as an ongoing resource? Here are a few examples.
Recruitment Planning
Internal teams review and update the plan to set the recruitment agenda for the coming fiscal year. The team considers what changed in the past year and prioritizes the needs into a twelve-month recruitment agenda. This review helps to ensure that recruitment attention is not just on the urgent but also the important.
Once this initial set of recruitment priorities is crafted, the review team compares that list with the organization’s resource “realities,” including:
- Recruitment staffing and budget
- Space needs – ambulatory, procedural, emergency, and inpatient
- Practice management infrastructure demands
- Operating and capital budgets
A final recruitment agenda is then ready for implementation.
Physician Hiring
Organizations often use the plan as a reference guide for when private practices request recruitment assistance. They then know whether the legal premise is there to provide that support or not. Or if the organization needs more cardiologists to address competitive issues, the plan defines whether those new specialists can be recruited into existing private practices or if they need to be employed given compliance constraints.
Practice Nuances
Some organizations will complete deeper, specialized studies as needed for specific initiatives. For example, they may decide to:
- Determine the number of primary care providers needed for network development and/or population health management. To do this, the study augments the traditional supply/demand analysis with qualitative market research to better understand access and availability throughout the market.
- Expand specific service lines, like obstetrics or orthopedics, and identify the actual capacity for growth. Identify the existing specialists’ true practice patterns with additional research. For example, are the OBGs all doing obstetrics or have some narrowed their practice scope to gynecology only? Do the orthopedic surgeons practice only a specific sub-specialty – shoulder/elbow – and exclude general orthopedics?
The most effective medical staff development plan goes beyond the simple exercise of compliance management. For non-profit hospitals and health systems, it outlines the organization’s responsibilities to the community in supplying needed provider resources. More than that, when it is grounded in the organization’s strategic plan, it serves as a reliable road map for the physician/advanced care provider recruitment agenda for the coming years.