Kelley Hekowczyk is the Director of Physician Recruitment and Credentialing at UCHealth.
Kelley oversees Physician Recruitment for UCHealth’s employed medical group, Colorado Health Medical Group. She has over 15 years of physician recruitment experience. Her background includes eight years of Human Resources experience in the hospital setting. She then transitioned over to Physician Recruitment and has enjoyed building programs.
1. If someone is in healthcare recruitment right now, what is your advice to them during this virus season?
Make yourself helpful to your leadership – healthcare recruiters can be invaluable to assist senior leadership due to our involvement with communicating with high level leaders and decision makers; spend time building your pipeline of candidates – we have found a lot of candidates have time to research positions and seem to want to discuss possible and upcoming openings; catch up on reading and work you never had time for – this is a great time to focus on your professional involvement and get updated on current articles and certifications.
2. As someone heavily involved in healthcare recruitment, what are your biggest concerns right now?
One of my concerns is making sure our physicians who are scheduled to start with us this summer feel confident about their position and employer. We have made strong efforts to let our candidates know we are still planning on having them start with us and we are committed to them.
3. How do you best make video interviewing replace ‘in person’ interviewing?
We are still in the learning phase of this but will be moving through this process rapidly. We have identified a handful of positions that we are willing to interview on a virtual basis and are willing to make a final decision on without physically meeting the candidates. We will see what the interest is on the candidate’s side to make a decision without meeting their team in person or seeing their workplace.
4. How do you think healthcare recruitment will change once we are on the other side of this virus season?
I do think it will take a substantial amount of time before interviewers and interviewees feel comfortable being around each other again, shaking hands and eating together again. Virtual interviewing may become more commonplace in the early stages of the recruitment process, however, I feel strongly that meeting face to face is critical to interviewing a physician and having both sides feeling confident about each other.
NP Now is a search firm for NPs, PAs, MDs, RNs and CRNAs, located in Charleston, South Carolina and serving clients in all 50 states. We recruit for permanent placements in all clinical settings.