Mar 08, 2021
Provider recruiting isn’t an industry known for being “on the cutting edge.” Tools like candidate databases and email marketing still hold the title of “most recent innovations.” Cue: 2020.
While we’d all like to avoid yet another recap of what happened last year, a great deal of positive change resulted. The biggest change? The world, our industry included, went virtual.
For this Inline Session, we sat down with Carey Goryl and Liz Mahan of AAPPR to discuss how 2020 and going virtual impacted our industry as a whole.
“Healthcare, prior to COVID, was one of the most resistant industries to change, there were a lot of legacy systems”
- Carey Goryl, AAPPR
Now forced to embrace new technology, healthcare facilities began implementing two new practices: telemedicine and virtual interviewing.
Telemedicine
Telemedicine has historically stood in the shadows of in-person healthcare delivery. But then, in the beginning of 2020, patient use of telemedicine went up 33% compared to 2019. Suddenly the entire country felt like a healthcare desert. Which, as we discussed on day one of The Inline Sessions, telemedicine closes healthcare gaps by making providers more accessible.
Virtual Interviewing
For in-house recruiters, the biggest adjustment was switching from in-person to virtual interviewing. It certainly brought up a lot of questions. How could you truly get to know someone through a screen? How would facility tours be conducted? According to NEJM, much of this process stays the same. While you do need to be prepared for any technical difficulties, prepping for the rest of the interview remains the same. In fact, by conducting interviews virtually, the physician and the facility save time and travel expenses by participating virtually.
And these aren’t the only changes propelled by COVID. Regulations and licensing restrictions have loosened, candidate activity has increased, and rural recruitment is seeing higher activity. For an industry once stuck in it’s ways, 2020 propelled healthcare recruiting into what can only be described as a brighter, tech-forward future.
If you’d like to view the full Inline Session, click below to access all of our recordings from the 2021 Inline Sessions.