6. Rural Recruitment and Integration

Many issues around recruitment and integration are the same in every healthcare context, but healthcare organizations in rural settings face a unique set of challenges and opportunities.

In this video you will hear about some of the barriers to recruiting first-hand from Dr. Chris Bourdon, the Recruiting Director of Health Sciences North.

(To read along click here.)

Collaboration between organizations only strengthens the quality of the services each can offer. This has been found to be especially true in rural settings. In this next video you will see how important collaboration between the healthcare organization and the surrounding community is in the rural recruitment process.

(To read along click here.)

Dr. Chris Bourdon described it like this:

If the core or the large hospital is strong, that creates a network of recruitment for the smaller hospitals. We found that here . . . so people would create comfort [in Sudbury] it creates comfort for recruits in Timmins, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie. Each of these small communities really needs to develop their own plan, but it’s often in collaboration with their large cities in the network. So yes there’s some competition, but we also want to see them be successful in their recruitment, because if they’re successful in their recruitment then . . . as their patients get sicker and have higher needs, we know that we can move them back and forth.

What I’ve found in those communities is it’s really—it goes beyond a hospital recruitment or clinic recruitment; it’s really a city recruitment. We’re recruiting you to a lifestyle, to a city; we want to show you that . . . you’ll be well received in the community. What [patients] really want is to have is care close to home, and what we know is that’s the most effective way to deliver healthcare in the long term.

In this final video you will again see the role that community plays in the rural healthcare setting, this time with a focus on employee integration.

(To read along click here.)

For healthcare organizations in rural settings:

• Hiring IEHPs is a matter of filling jobs in areas which are frequently underserved, not a matter of weighing the reality of diversity issues.
• Geography is often a very real barrier in recruitment.
• The degree of planning involved in recruiting and helping IEHPs to settle in and integrate is considerable.
• Incentives are frequently offered to IEHPs to encourage them to work and live there (in contrast with well-served urban locations).