As the Baby Boomers age, they will develop more age-related diseases — and as such, they will need more medical care. At all levels of healthcare staffing, more workers will be needed to keep up with the demands of medical care. However, there is another issue for the healthcare staffing industry: retiring employees. In fact, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources predicts that one-third of the U.S. nursing workforce is nearing retiring age, and will need to be replaced. 

Therefore, effective recruiting for healthcare organizations is essential to meeting the growing needs of the U.S. public. 

But how can human resources departments do this? Here are a couple of possibilities:

• Provide better benefits. Why should nurses, doctors, or physician’s assistants choose to come to your hospital, rather than the other one across the street? Because you’ll pay them better, provide them better hours or healthcare, or help their retirement the most. 
• Use services as incentives. For example, many hospitals are now offering daycare services at no to low-cost to employees. This immediately piques the interest of anyone with a family (or planning on starting one soon). 
• Create a mentorship program which helps to train younger professionals by older ones on the verge of retiring. This could be an effective program that helps to attract people who are eager to continue learning.
• Utilize social media as part of an employee referral program. Employees are incentivized to reach out into their social networks with job opening information and rewarded if connections and hires are made.

If the previous two possibilities are too expensive or untenable, then there are still other ways to increase success rates of hiring new healthcare practitioners.

• Work on your brand image. Every hospital has a brand, and increasing the visibility of your hospital’s brand — via social media, advertisements or networking on campuses training new practitioners — will draw new nurses and doctors to you, because they perceive your brand to be superior.
• Invest in strong, healthy relationships with present employees. Many people apply for jobs after hearing about them from others, and if your employees speak highly of your hospital, other people  will want to work there, too.

As the healthcare staffing crunch intensifies, the hospitals with the most to offer in terms of brand, benefits and services will come out on top, meaning more success and better patient outcomes.