Marketing Know-How Revs Physician Recruitment Strategy

Ask any CEO intent on growing his or her organization's service lines what the top challenges are, and you're likely to hear that physician recruitment is on the short list.

For example, for service lines to grow, physician recruitment challenges must first be overcome. And service lines are booming. According to the HealthLeaders Media 2012 Industry Survey, roughly one in five leaders surveyed said they expect primary care, orthopedics, cardiology, and oncology service lines to grow by 6% or more. One in four said they expect geriatrics to grow by that rate. [Download the free Service Lines report (PDF).]

Identifying and recruiting the best physicians is a growing concern nationwide. As baby-boomer docs start to retire, not only must hospitals replace them, but they also have to reinvent their recruitment communication tactics to reach the younger generation of MDs. And that leaves a lot of hospital leaders scratching their heads.

Facing a physician shortage
Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC) found itself with a substantial physician shortage in 2007 when the first round of baby-boomer physicians retired, leaving a 25-position deficit—18% of its 140-physician staff.

What's more, 10 of these positions had been open for longer than one year. And over the past few years, just one to two physicians had been recruited each year.

These realizations lead the 99-bed organization to reevaluate its recruitment process. Prior to the shortage, human resources was responsible for recruiting all physicians and staff. But as key positions remained empty month after month, it became clear that SVMC needed a new approach.

First, leadership appointed a medical staff office member to act as a physician liaison and recruiter. This decision was critical, as having a dedicated recruiter on staff is one of the most efficient ways to create a physician recruitment program and it lets applicants know that you take recruitment and retention seriously.

Identifying marketing's role in recruitment
As SVMC's physician recruiter began to get the lay of the land in her new role, it became clear to her that the marketing department should be involved.

Working together, marketing and the physician liaison created two key recruitment messages.

"The first was that this is a fantastic practice environment and you don't have to give up anything in intellectual or technical quality to practice at a small rural hospital," explains Kevin Robinson, communications director. "[The second message was] we have highly trained physicians and trained staff and a collegial atmosphere. It's a fantastic place to live for a certain type of person—for a person who likes to know their colleagues and practice in a team environment."

Robinson and his team decided that the best vehicle to communicate this message was through a recruitment microsite featuring video testimonials, physician profiles, and benefit highlights.

"To carry the message through on our website, we profiled some of our physicians and [asked them] why they chose to practice here," Robinson says. "And in the videos we interviewed top physicians and asked what drew them here."

Integrating social media
The recruitment strategy eventually expanded to include direct mail, online advertising, and social media campaigns. Tactics like these are key to targeting the younger generation of physicians, or even younger boomers.

Even if you don't have the budget for a full-time recruiter, you should have a page on your website listing physician openings, benefits, and application information.

By using social media, banner ads, and pay-per-click advertising you're not only reaching potential candidates where they spend time online, but you're also sending a message that your organization is tech-savvy.

Attaining instantaneous results
The SVMC recruitment team didn't have to wait long to find out if their efforts were successful. By December 1 2007, just one and a half months after launching the campaign, more than 100 physician applications had been filed. Before the campaign launched, HR had only 20 active candidates.

Robinson attributes the campaign's positive results to integrating marketing know-how and traditional recruitment tactics.

"There's some marketing know-how that can be used in physician recruitment to help define and target the audience and understand what kind of institution you work at and what might drive people to join your team," he says.

Karen Minich-Pourshadi contributed to this column.