Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, CHRISTUS Health had a staffing problem — a mass exit of ICU nurses in their Corpus Christi region.
The talent and recruiting team knew they needed to do something fast to stabilize.
CHRISTUS Health is a faith-based, not-for-profit health system that includes more than 60 hospitals and long-term healthcare facilities and 175 clinics and outpatient centers.
When its nursing shortage began, CHRISTUS initially relied on hiring short-term contracts to fill the gaps. However, the facility needed a reliable solution.
That’s when international nurses became an integral part of their recruiting strategy.
“We need to be able to shift and move with the needs of our populations, with the communities that we serve,” said Manuel Acuna, director of talent acquisition at CHRISTUS.
“And what this does, it truly allows us to have that buffer, that safety net, we can fall back on and know, within the next 12 to 36 months, this is what we have.”
CHRISTUS partnered with PassportUSA, the largest network of highly-qualified and credentialed global healthcare professionals available for interview.
The PassportUSA relocation and resettlement process includes helping healthcare professionals to establish households near the assigned work location and supports their family unit.
“With other organizations, I used to be the one with the boots on the ground and picking them up from airports and worried about, you know, car seats for kids and things like that,” said Talent Acquisition Executive Corrian Nwankwo. “So it's taken a load off of me personally. We're not doing those things anymore, and I'm freed up to do other things.”
In an interview with Health Carousel, the recruiters from CHRISTUS spoke more about international nurses and what helped to make them a great “cultural fit.”
