Top staffing strategies for hiring registered nurses, pharmacists, and allied health professionals
Healthcare facilities are currently being challenged to provide quality care while simultaneously dealing with an extreme shortage of workforce availability. Deliberate staffing strategies are necessary to fill the gaps and stabilize critical positions, such as those of nurses, pharmacists, and allied health professionals. Many facilities have struggled to quickly recruit registered nurses, clinical staff, or hire pharmacists, resulting in delays in providing operational services.
Therefore, leaders are skilled at managing patient needs and maximizing recruitment while balancing retention to prevent more severe organizational issues from occurring. In this blog, we will discuss the challenges we are all facing and how to learn from and integrate innovation with existing practices, enabling healthcare facilities to establish a better-resourced workforce. To overcome these challenges, leaders must adopt new staffing models that prioritize flexibility, creativity, and sustainability for the long-term well-being of the workforce.
The size and scope of staffing challenges in healthcare
Healthcare facilities nationwide are facing unprecedented challenges in finding candidates to fill critical positions. Job shortages in nursing, pharmacy, and allied health professions have been impacted by high demand, an aging workforce, and the inability to recover from burnout. For example, in some areas, shortages in registered nurse staffing and pharmacist staffing are leaving hospitals without enough staff to meet patient care needs.
This exposes patients to risks when clinical roles cannot provide care to meet the pace of services or patient care requirements. Traditional approaches, even before the COVID-19 pandemic, no longer provide Staffing strategies for healthcare with the speed they once did in filling critical positions.
Building a sustainable talent pipeline through educational partnerships
One of the strongest recruitment efforts comes from collaborating directly with learning institutions. By collaborating with nursing schools, pharmacy programs, or other health professional colleges, organizations can identify qualified candidates earlier in their career pathways. This method of staffing strategies significantly expands the pool of applicants and provides healthcare facilities with greater control over education and training tailored to their specific practice needs.
Building partnership agreements creates a consistent pipeline to hire pharmacist talent, register new nurses, and evaluate allied healthcare professionals. Investing in and through education refers to staffing models that work to achieve sustainability for the future.
- Direct experience, such as residency or other learning opportunities, encourages student participation.
- Career fairs and mentor programs bolster employer branding.
- Students who feel and connect to an organization early in their career are less likely to leave, which benefits both parties in the long term.
Utilizing tech-based staffing platforms
Technology has transformed healthcare recruitment, offering faster and more transparent methods for recruitment. AI-powered solutions allow facilities to match and hire pre-vetted candidates nationwide with shorter timelines than traditional staffing agencies.
For example, a modern staffing platform like MedSquirrels can support healthcare facilities when they need to hire allied healthcare professionals or pharmacists and nursing staff in response to sudden staffing demands.
Additionally, with technology, facilities can leverage real-time analytics that enable their leaders to identify hiring patterns and workforce gaps. If more healthcare facilities incorporated digital innovation into their staffing strategies, they would reduce costs, save time, and make better decisions.
Flexible workforce models to reduce burnout and improve retention
Burnout and turnover remain significant challenges in healthcare, and the need for flexible workforce models is more crucial than ever. Following the pandemic, hospitals and clinics are adopting staffing models for all areas and specialties of healthcare, including travel nurses and flexible shifts.
Overall, these new models and flexible options are improving retention rates and also enable facilities to meet patient safety and quality requirements when learning demands are high. For example, flexible allied healthcare staffing supports and reduces dependency on overtime staff, while also better engaging the workforce. When combined with effective staffing strategies, flexibility fosters an environment where professionals feel supported and inspired to stay long-term.
Engaging specialized healthcare staffing agencies
As staffing shortages persist, many healthcare recruiters and facilities attempt multiple approaches. Some rely on free job boards, but these often take too long to fill roles. Few facilities connect with nursing schools to build a pipeline and reduce staffing gaps, yet these gaps persist. As these steps did not provide the required solutions, recruiters turn to traditional staffing agencies without fully considering the drawbacks.
While these agencies can assist you in filling staffing gaps, they often come with higher markups, slower candidate delivery, and a lack of transparency into sourcing and billing. As a result, the ability to hire registered nurses is often delayed. Along with this requirement, if a healthcare facility is also planning to fill pharmacist staffing roles, this becomes challenging due to limited access to skilled and pre-vetted professionals, such as pharmacy technicians.
To address these staffing hurdles, modern staffing platforms like MedSquirrels are reshaping by offering cost-effective staffing strategies and solutions. These modern staffing platforms or agencies eliminate agency markups and offer transparent, cost-effective solutions that cater to facilities of all sizes.
Platforms like MedSquirrels leverage AI-driven technology to connect employers with pre-screened, licensed professionals across the country, making it easier to hire pharmacists.
It also assists facilities in quickly onboarding nurses. Additionally, this platform supports hiring allied healthcare professionals, such as physician assistants. Beyond hiring, MedSquirrels, a healthcare staffing platform, streamlines payroll, compliance, and benefits, allowing providers to focus on patient care. With fast onboarding and flexible options for full-time or contractual recruitment, facilities can avoid delays, efficiently fill staffing gaps, and achieve long-term stability through modernized staffing methods.
