ABOUT AHA SOLUTIONS, INC.
As an American Hospital Association member service, AHA
Solutions, Inc. collaborates with hospital leaders and market consultants to conduct product due diligence and identify solutions to hospital challenges in the areas of finance,
human resources, patient flow and technology. It provides
marketplace analytics and education to support product
decision making and reinvests its profits in the AHA mission:
creating healthier communities. AHA Solutions, Inc. manages
the AHA Career Center on behalf of the AHA.
the site — benefiting all participants; and teaming with Boxwood’s
collaborative association-based network strategy.
Until 2008, AHA members primarily turned to large commercial job boards for help wanted, says Anthony Burke, president
and CEO of AHA Solutions.
“However, we realized that relying on a third party might not
have our members’ best interests at heart and might not take
their professional development seriously,” Burke says. “
Commercial job boards are very good at assembling jobs, but they don’t
have the loyalty, affinity and direct connection to the talent
pools our members seek. We needed to build access to these
talent pools.
“We asked ourselves if we were committing to our members’
growth and decided we should be their source to facilitate a better flow of job opportunities and advance their careers. Who better to do that than a group that represents hospitals and other
segment owners of health care? We knew this could be accomplished one of two ways: develop a single career site or do something much more impactful — put all health care job boards on
one platform and create one place for human resource executives to search wide and deep for the right workers.”
The strategy for the network is not a competitive one. “All
organizations that are part of the network are focused on better
patient care, better patient outcome. All organizations have a
stake in this,” Burke says. “The demand on the health care system is great, with the American population growing older and
living longer, more stringent health care education requirements,
an aging health care workforce and fairly high job turnover. But
quality of workers cannot be sacrificed. In health care, you have
to have the right person in the right job at the right time, all
the time. So everyone linked to this job network is stepping up
to provide this.”
The AHA considers itself an ambassador to get other associations aligned to the cause, says Amy Goble, vice president
of the AHA Career Center. “More than 2,000 health care associations exist and there is a place for every one of them in the
National Healthcare Career Network. We think the network is
relevant and meaningful to every association that has an interest in health care.”
To promote the network, in 2008 the AHA held 12 in-person roundtable meetings in Chicago and Washington, D.C. —
the nation’s two largest health care association markets — and
two audio conferences about what it means to be involved in
the network. The AHA, in conjunction with Boxwood, targeted
state and local hospital association executives. The network’s
founding partners hope to attract more associations to join the
network by associations reaching out to their affiliates and
specialty organizations and Boxwood contacting relevant associations in its client database.
FOUNDING MEMBERS TAKE CARE
“Top job candidates join their professional associations, and
this network links association job boards together to help
recruiters locate the right person for the job,” Umbdenstock
says. “Professional societies have taken a critical and essential
step to help health care professionals find jobs and hospitals
find the staff they need.”
ASAE & The Center became involved as a founding partner
because associations are “natural breeding grounds for talented
professionals,” says John Graham, CAE, ASAE & The Center’s
president and CEO. “The [network] provides a way for health care
organizations of every kind to join together to find specialized
talent faster.”
Larry Minnix, president and CEO of the American Association
of Homes and Services for the Aging, which represents 5,800
member organizations that specialize in aging services from
adult day services and home health to assisted living residences
and nursing homes, says professional workers in the aging services field are active members of their professional associations.
And as a founding member of the network, AAHSA has “linked
forces with other like-minded associations that seek to make it
easier to fill health care positions with qualified candidates.”
The network not only provides job placement and advancement opportunities, it also creates an additional revenue stream
for associations that is used to fund workforce initiatives.
The groups reinvest the non-dues revenue generated through
their job board and the network into their own career Web sites
and education, certification and training, Burke says. With the
profits it generated during the first six months, the AHA created
a scholarship program and awarded six $1,000 scholarships in
October to individuals pursuing undergraduate, graduate degrees
or continuing education in a health care field to use toward
tuition or books.
FILLING A NEED
The National Healthcare Career Network is growing very rapidly,
with 6,000 to 7,000 jobs posted on the network at one time.
ABOUT THE NATIONAL HEALTHCARE
CAREER NETWORK
The National Healthcare Career Network connects health
care associations’ job boards through a single network to
address a national crisis in health care staffing. This linked
network brings together job seekers and employers in one
searchable database. Jobs posted to the network appear
on all relevant sites, so job seekers on an association
career Web site see more jobs and employers on an association career Web site receive better results. Each association retains its own branded job board.
The network was formed to promote health care associations and professional societies as the “go-to” recruitment
resource for finding health care talent. Through the network,
health care associations are working together to address the
staffing crisis. Visit www.NationalHealthCareerNetwork.com
for more information.
