The medical industry is dealing with a national crisis – healthcare labor shortages. This shortage of labor places healthcare facilities in precarious positions when it comes to providing quality care. The need for recruiting and retaining quality employees is driving up labor costs and financially burdening healthcare facilities. Genesis Medical Management asked Sonny Diaz, Program Director at Ketamine Infusion Centers, how they have dealt with recruiting and retaining quality employees.
Sonny stated that Ketamine Infusions Centers has been very fortunate to have retained all their staff for numerous years, and that retention has been their primary goal for dealing with labor shortages. If they can retain their staff, they do not have to worry about the labor shortages other facilities are facing. Sonny feels their retention success begins with their recruitment process.
When Ketamine Infusion Centers recruits new staff, they use ApplicantPro, which allows them to post their positions to hundreds of job boards with one posting. This process decreases their time and expenses in hiring, while also allowing all staff involved in the hiring process access to review all applicants. Ketamine Infusion Centers also posts their open positions on the college job sites, to reach new graduates and alumni, which has been a successful process for obtaining quality applicants.
The interview process at Ketamine Infusion Centers is a little outside of the box, and Sonny states that it allows them to find applicants that think outside of the box, show initiative, and are motivated. They start with an interview with multiple staff members involved to allow multiple employees to evaluate the applicant’s abilities and whether they are the right fit for the position. If the applicant appears to be a good fit, they then move into what Ketamine Infusion Centers calls a “working interview.” The applicant is asked to go through various scenarios with real staff and real patients, so that staff can evaluate their professional skills, their initiative, and their overall fitness with the rest of the team.
During these “working interviews,” depending on the position being applied for, they may be asked to do something, be watched to see if they take initiative to assist without being asked and be evaluated throughout the whole process. Sonny gave an example of a potential nurse working interview: they may ask them specific scenario questions of how they would deal with certain situations, such as they may be told that a patient’s oxygen levels are low and watch to see if they reach for the oxygen to assist. They may have a pump alarm going off in the next room and ask them to deal with it so they can evaluate their reaction, initiative, and knowledge.
Once an applicant is deemed a good fit for the position and with everyone else on the team, and hired, they are welcomed into the family environment. Ketamine Infusion Centers takes pride in their compassionate, family environment, with the staff and with the patients. Patient care is at the forefront of everything they do, so staff must all be willing to learn everything they need to know about every patient, so they can treat them like family. Keeping this in mind, Ketamine Infusion Centers ensures that all staff cross-train and learn as much about every other position as they can. Their belief is that no one position is more important than another, whether they are a nurse, a scheduler, an anesthesiologist, or in an administrative position, they are all one team.
Sonny states that to hire an employee, they must tell him they want the position. As they go through the hiring process, they must voice that they like what they see and want to be a part of the team at Ketamine Infusion Centers; to Sonny, that indicates motivation. Once Ketamine Infusion Centers finds a quality candidate with a good work ethic, motivation, and initiative, they will likely become a good, long-term employee because they will be working side-by-side with people who all have those same qualities, and their staff longevity is the proof.
Genesis Medical Management thanks Sonny Diaz for sharing Ketamine Infusion Centers’ success for dealing with recruiting and retaining employees. There are some great quality medical staff candidates out there, you just need a plan in place for how you will evaluate, train, and develop them as a valuable member of your close-knit team.