Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health hired 730 physicians and clinicians last year, a systemwide record for a single year.
This year, CEO Warner Thomas said Sutter aims to hire even more. Sutter saw around 100% increase in applications across all disciplines last year, including leaders and nursing.
"We are generating a lot of interest from folks that want to come and join the journey we're on here at Sutter," said Mr. Thomas on an episode of the "Becker's Healthcare Podcast."
Hiring more clinicians will improve access to care and build out clinical depth systemwide. But the work doesn't stop after clinicians are recruited; Sutter's executive team has also focused on building a strong culture engaging clinicians to increase retention.
"We talk about our mission being patients first, people always, and making sure that we are focused on our patients, our communities, and how we help each other," said Mr. Thomas. "That cultural evolution at Sutter has been exciting. We've seen great traction and improvement in our engagement, both our employees, physicians and clinicians across the organization."
The focus on engagement and retention is working. Mr. Thomas said Sutter has seen about a 50% reduction in turnover since the team began its cultural transformation 18 months ago. Sutter is also building academic partnerships in non-physician areas, such as physician assistants, medical assistants, nursing and other clinical disciplines to strengthen the pipeline.
Finally, leadership development is top of mind. The health system doubled down on the physician workforce by creating a plan to grow its graduate medical education by five times as part of the long term strategic plan.
"We instituted a very comprehensive talent management process and succession planning process here at Sutter," said Mr. Thomas. "We are relooking at all of our diversity, equity and inclusion strategies and building a more diverse leadership team, a more diverse population of nurses, physicians and clinicians in the organization. That is critically important to the success of our organization in the future."