The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS) runs the nation’s second-largest municipal health system, annually caring for more than 800,000 patients. But like many cities and communities across the country, DHS is experiencing a shortage of primary care physicians. To counter this deficiency, FUSE Executive Fellow Nancy Villasenor developed comprehensive recruitment, hiring, onboarding, and marketing plan that DHS can use to attract a larger pool of primary care physicians committed to public healthcare. To support DHS’s COVID-19 efforts, she helped fast-track the hiring and onboarding of physicians. She also worked with the Ambulatory Care Network to recruit volunteer physicians to help people who are experiencing homelessness and have contracted COVID-19.
Nancy’s work included assessing DHS’s existing recruitment and onboarding procedures and creating a plan to streamline operations, thereby reducing the number of steps needed to recruit and onboard employees and automating more processes. She has developed a structure for a centralized recruitment team, including recommended positions and resources, that would focus solely on physician recruitment, hiring, and onboarding. She has also developed a strategic marketing plan to attract and secure more mission-driven primary care physicians. Nancy continues to support DHS’s COVID-19 response and hiring efforts, including identifying open physician roles and devising tactics to fill them, helping DHS meet critical staffing needs. She has created nineteen recruitment videos, held sixteen recruitment events with graduating residents throughout southern California, reaching over 175 residents within pediatrics, internal medicine, family medicine, and psychiatry specialties, and launched DHS’s first physician recruitment website.
