Marketware Enables Cape Fear Valley Health to Streamline & Simplify Physician Recruitment 

Cape Fear Valley Health System Overview

Old Technology Complicates the Recruitment Process

With significant staffing demands across a broad array of facilities and rapid growth, Cape Fear’s provider recruitment team has to keep several balls in the air to make sure everyone is on the same page and the process is moving forward.

“We’re growing faster than I would have ever imagined,” says Ashley Dowless, Corporate Director of Provider Recruitment for Cape Fear. “I think we’re right now at 92 outpatient clinics, just broke ground on a medical school, so we’re going to transition into an academic teaching center. It’s been dizzying but also remarkable at the same time.”

The rate of growth over recent years made clear to Cape Fear decision-makers that the tools they were using for physician recruitment would not sustain them for long. 

Dowless describes a world where provider information was kept in a Microsoft Access database supplemented by Excel when the limits of Access became clear. 

“It became very antiquated,” she says. “You have to go into too many different tools to actually get the data you need to make any kind of decision.”

Subsequent improvement efforts led Cape Fear to install a niche physician recruitment tool that also could not stand up to the growth and complexity demands the health system presents.

Making All Relevant Information Available in One Location

Because they work regularly with different recruitment agencies, Dowless and her team have to first clear prospective clinicians to make sure they don’t already exist in the system. That important initial step is simplified with the use of Marketware in place of several data tools requiring manual coordination.

“Once they’re cleared and entered, we assign them to a practice opportunity, add notes on any conversations that we’ve had, the source that they came from, etc., all in the same interface,” Dowless explains. “It’s so much more efficient than hopping between tools, and we’re a lot more confident that the data is correct.” 

It’s this aspect of Marketware that alleviates anxiety for personnel managers and gives them more certainty when reporting data up to the C-suite. This is especially valuable for someone like Dowless, who is recruiting constantly.

“No matter who is accessing it, they can see the most recently completed step,” Dowless says. “They can see where we are with each candidate. From a real-time perspective, I can bring up my laptop and go to an opportunity and say, ‘Here’s how many are in this phase, this phase, or this phase.’ It’s a much more visual tool than we had before.”

Out of the box, how effective is Marketware as a comprehensive physician recruitment tool?

Dowless appreciates that Marketware doesn’t require a lot of initial configuration to be effective but is easily customizable to meet specific organizational needs and workflows.

“There are always some initial issues, which we reported, they were quickly fixed, simple as that,” Dowless says. “We were also having to change some of our workflows to accommodate Marketware, so I contacted our account representative, and she showed us how to configure the system for our processes. You really can pretty much make Marketware your own.”

Opening Up a World of Reporting & Onboarding Possibilities

What most excites Dowless and her team about their use of Marketware to date is that there is so much left to discover.

“My boss tells me all the time that I need to get better at telling my story,” Dowless says, “which has been difficult to tell because of the tools we had to work with. I’m really excited to get into the reporting side and to see the different ways we can pull data to support the entire team’s efforts.”

As demonstrated at numerous other client facilities, Marketware will make it easy for Dowless and her team to set up periodic reports that clearly illustrate the value of their work. She also looks forward to fully utilizing the onboarding side of Marketware, which simplifies the process of adding new clinicians to the organization.

In the meantime, she values the support provided by Marketware, the timeliness of requested platform updates, and the many ways Marketware improves work life for her team. She is currently working with Marketware, for example, to integrate Marketware with the Cape Fear website job boards.

“I would absolutely recommend Marketware to other healthcare organizations and already have,” Dowless says. “I think I sent about 10 people our account rep’s name and number. Of course they say, ‘Well, it’s not budget time,’ and I say, ‘Look, if your health system is like mine, I’m sure you’ve already spent a lot more on tools that offered a lot less value.”

Demo — Physician Recruitment

An Inside Look at Marketware’s Recruitment Platform

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Tool Kit — Physician Recruitment

Physician Recruitment Playbook

A recruitment playbook serves as a comprehensive guide to help in-house recruitment teams streamline their processes, enhance efficiency, and successfully attract and retain top physician talent. By following the four key steps outlined in this tool kit, organizations can build a robust recruitment strategy that aligns with their mission and long-term goals.

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