Page 21 - BusinessWest June 10, 2024

“Baystate has implemented several key training programs ... for example, we’ll go out
and recruit a cohort of medical assistants. Instead of people having to go to school to become a medical assistant, we’ll hire them, and we’ll pay them to train to become a medical assistant.”
a cohort of medical assistants. Instead of people having to go to school to become a medical assistant, we’ll hire them, and we’ll pay them to train to become a medical assistant,” said Pacheco, adding that the system is partnering with Holyoke Community College to deliver a medical assistant training course, just one of myriad exam- ples of how providers and systems are being proactive, and getting creative, when it comes to recruiting talent and retaining it.
Dr. Robert Roose, chief administrative officer for the Springfield market of Trinity Health Of New England, overseeing Mercy Medi- cal Center, Johnson Memorial Hospital, and the affiliates of both, said both elements of the equation are equally important.
And as he acknowledged that the workforce crisis in healthcare has eased — or “reset,” he said — there are many reasons for this, including, at Mercy and elsewhere, a healthy emphasis on culture.
“Our colleagues have found that culture is what has ultimately compelled people to come to a system and stay within a system and continue to engage in the wellness professions,” he told Business- West. “We’re looking at how we better redesign work to attend to the ways that healthcare delivery has changed and will continue to be changing, and looking at ways to reinforce what matters to peo- ple to retain them in our hospitals and healthcare systems, while recruiting more individuals.”
Emily Davis, senior director of Human Resources at Cooley Dickinson Hospital, concurred.
“From a retention standpoint, it comes down to ... how do we provide an environment where employees feel not only appreci- ated, but where, in every position, they can understand and feel the impact they’re having on patient care?
“Also, how does the environment they work in every day contrib- ute positively to not just their livelihood, but their lives?” she went on, adding that providers’ ability to answer those questions in a positive fashion will go a long way toward determining their abil- ity to retain the employees they have worked so hard to attract and invested so much in terms of onboarding and continued training and professional development.
For this issue and its forcus on the healthcare workforce, we’ll get back to those questions, how systems and individual providers
Dr. Robert Roose says a focus on culture has helped to “reset” the workforce crisis.
are answering them, and how they are looking to make additional progress in living with this new normal.
Hire Power
As he talked about the workforce issues still confronting health- care providers — but also about the progress made on some levels — Pacheco used numbers to help get his points across.
He said the system has been averaging 1,600 to 1,650 job vacan- cies at any given time, a number that is more than double what the system was averaging (maybe 700 to 800 vacancies) before the pandemic, but a significant improvement over the more than 2,000
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JUNE 10, 2024 21