Hiring challenges in the healthcare industry

The healthcare industry is at a breaking point. With an ageing population fuelling demand, healthcare providers are desperately seeking qualified talent to deliver quality care. But antiquated hiring and onboarding processes have left organisations struggling to vet, hire, and retain staff efficiently largely due to:

• Manual, paper-based background checks.
• Disjointed systems that are unable to share data.
• Compliance risks and penalties.

Healthcare providers need solutions beyond mere applicant tracking to address this hiring crisis. They need automated, integrated systems that span the entire talent lifecycle from recruitment to screening to onboarding. Modern background check technology can streamline workflows, reduce time-to-hire, and minimise risks. Advanced background checks provide end-to-end visibility by plugging into existing HR platforms, enabling informed hiring decisions.

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For healthcare organisations to maintain standards and meet urgent staffing needs, the time is now to leverage automated background checking in the race for talent.

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Challenges

The healthcare industry faces a dire hiring crisis due to high demand and an ageing workforce. The challenges faced by healthcare recruitment teams aren't isolated to talent acquisition and HR; they have a knock-on impact on the rest of the company. Recruiting qualified staff promptly is essential for healthcare organisations to meet quotas and provide quality patient care. The primary challenges involve data visibility issues, disjointed systems, manual processes, and compliance risks, all affecting the entire organisation's performance.

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Data visibility issues impact informed decisions

Manual, paper-based processes are prevalent in healthcare hiring, leading to a profound lack of access to complete candidate information during decision-making. Recruiters often need more comprehensive visibility into applicant histories, credentials, and backgrounds, making it extremely difficult to make informed choices about candidates.

Challenge:

• Poor data visibility: Especially problematic for decentralised healthcare organisations with complex, fragmented recruiting workflows, poor data visibility leads to inconsistent practices, recruiter burnout, and skyrocketing compliance risks.
• Diagnostic challenges: The root causes of dysfunctional recruiting remain obscured, preventing the analysis of what's broken in the hiring process. Recruiters cannot improve what they cannot see.
• Need for data utilisation: Healthcare organisations must harness data and reporting to identify bottlenecks, improve processes, and make data-driven decisions. Total visibility into the recruitment metrics is crucial for curing ongoing hiring ailments.
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Lengthy time-to-hire prevents access to needed talent

Inefficient processes significantly prolong the time-to-hire for healthcare roles, with open positions going unfilled for months due to fragmented systems and manual workflows.

Challenge:

• NHS statistics: Recent NHS data reveals spending of £3.2 billion on agency staff, with £1.5 billion tied to recruiting delays. Over 75 days are required to hire and onboard workers after initial offers, with approximately 25% withdrawing from NHS roles after accepting offers.
• Critical delays: Extended processes drive strong candidates to rivals and deny patients timely access to potentially lifesaving care.

• Urgent improvement: Healthcare recruiting workflows must be rapidly improved to source talent that can immediately meet patient needs. There is an urgent priority to diagnose and address the root causes of excessive time-to-hire metrics.
• The NHS is not an outlier. Most healthcare providers average 60+ days to fill clinical vacancies. This drives strong candidates to rivals with optimised hiring. More critically, extended vacancies deny patients timely access to potentially lifesaving care.

Lack of integrations

Disjointed systems, such as Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS), background checks, and onboarding, fail to communicate effectively, resulting in data silos.

Challenge:

• Data silos: Information gets trapped in isolated systems rather than shared seamlessly across the hiring workflow. This leads to constant catch-up by hiring teams and compliance risks and penalties.

The healthcare industry's hiring process is troubled by interconnected challenges ranging from data visibility to extended hiring times, lack of integration between recruitment tools, and inefficient manual processes. These challenges affect the recruitment teams and broadly affect the entire company. Addressing these problems is pivotal for healthcare organisations to efficiently recruit, meet demands, and continue to provide top-tier patient care.

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The solution: automated, integrated background checking

Healthcare organisations grappling with recruitment inefficiencies can harness technology to create a more effective hiring process. Automated, integrated background checking represents a forward-thinking solution that offers several benefits:

Minimising compliance risks

• Standardisation and accuracy: Automated checks facilitate a uniform approach to background screening, ensuring adherence to relevant laws and regulations  . This consistency minimises human error, which can lead to compliance violations.
• Regulatory adherence: The automated system can be configured to follow the specific regulatory requirements in different regions or for various roles, ensuring that the process aligns with legal mandates and minimises potential legal risks.

Optimisation and streamlined hiring

• Faster time to hire: Automated background checking enables healthcare organisations to significantly reduce the time it takes to screen candidates. Traditional manual checks often take weeks to request and complete, whereas automated systems can provide comprehensive information within days or even hours.
• Cost reduction: The efficiency gained through automation and integration results in substantial time and cost savings, as it minimises manual administrative burdens and enables quicker filling of vacancies.
• Enhanced productivity: By automating routine and time-consuming background checks, recruiters and HR professionals can focus on higher-value activities that enhance the hiring process, such as building relationships with potential hires.

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Advanced integrations with existing systems

• Works with ATS and HRIS: Direct integrations with Applicant Tracking Systems and Human Resources Information Systems ensure platform uniformity. This helps in maintaining data integrity and ensures all stakeholders have up-to-date information.
• Real-time data accessibility: The seamless connectivity allows real-time access to vital information, reducing delays when transferring data between disparate systems. This responsiveness aids swift decision-making and helps meet tight hiring deadlines.

Holistic view of candidates earlier in the process

• Comprehensive screening: Automated checks offer a thorough overview of candidates' criminal histories, educational qualifications, previous employment, and other critical aspects. This enriched profile helps recruiters and HR professionals evaluate candidates more effectively.
• Informed selection: Early access to this detailed information enables hiring teams to assess candidates' suitability more precisely, reducing the likelihood of poor hiring decisions.
• Candidate experience enhancement: Providing timely feedback and progressing through the hiring stages more quickly improves the overall candidate experience, enhancing an organisation's employer brand.

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Conclusion

Efficient hiring is critical for healthcare providers to meet demand and deliver quality patient care. However, antiquated and fragmented systems have left many organisations struggling with poor data visibility, extended hiring timelines, lack of system integrations, inefficient manual processes, and heightened compliance risks.

Automated, integrated background checking presents a powerful solution to support in optimising the end-to-end hiring workflow. Direct integrations with existing platforms enable seamless data sharing, providing recruiters with visibility into candidate backgrounds. This enables faster and more informed hiring decisions to speed up  urgent hiring quotas.

Automation of background checks also reduces the manual effort to allow more strategic focus for recruiters and HR professionals. And with advanced customisation, automated checks minimise compliance risks and enhance the candidate experience. While recruiting qualified talent remains a challenge, the right technologies can equip healthcare organisations to hire top talent swiftly and efficiently.

As demand escalates, healthcare providers must leverage automated solutions to meet hiring demands and patients needs, and continue delivering excellent care. Integrated background checking can help drive this transformation.

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