Nursing shortages are an ongoing challenge that continues to affect facilities across the nation. In fact, between 2022 and 2025, there was a deficit of about 295,800 nurses nationwide, leaving many healthcare facilities throughout the U.S. in a constant state of understaffing.
However, some facilities prevailed by using new and creative ways to deal with staff crises, such as building reliable talent pools—cueing a collective sigh of relief. If you haven’t heard the good word, talent pools help build a candidate pipeline of qualified and skilled nurses who can fill gaps in coverage for healthcare facilities.
To further aid nurse recruitment efforts, many facilities are using on-demand staffing apps like Nursa to access a flexible workforce of per diem nurses. The result? A match made in heaven: Facilities get the nurses they need, and patients get the care they deserve.
Attention human resources, hiring managers, and anyone who needs to stay abreast of staffing trends in healthcare: This article is for you. Continue reading to learn what talent pools are, how to build them, and why they are important to keep nursing staffing shortages at bay.
What is a talent pool?
A talent pool is a list or database of job candidates with the skills required to meet a company’s present and long-term needs. In healthcare, facilities should have access to a talent pool of highly qualified nurses with the appropriate skill sets and flexibility to fill gaps in coverage.
A talent pool database houses information about each candidate. This database often features a targeted list of nurses, highlighting their skills, the roles they can fill, and their alignment with a facility's mission. Think of a talent pool of nurses as a reserve of exceptional and expert nurses who can be drawn upon when needed. Talent pools may consist of nurses who have already worked for a facility and have established that they are capable and adept at meeting the facility’s demands.
Why are healthcare talent pools important?
Facilities should have well-rounded talent pools of skilled nurses to anticipate shortages. The reality is that nursing shortages will continue to impact facilities throughout the country—and worldwide.
The staffing shortages that hospitals consistently face can have the following consequences:
- Increased patient loads and unsafe nurse-to-patient staffing ratios with direct and detrimental effects on patient care
- Increased risk of burnout among nurses, leading to frustrated, fatigued, and upset staff
- Delayed time for medical procedures and escalated risk of medical errors
- Compromised patient care and decreased patient satisfaction
Building versatile pools of candidates is one of the best ways for facilities to address fluctuations in staffing. These talent pools can quickly fill in for absent staff members and provide the buffer a facility needs to maintain quality patient care.
Benefits of building a robust talent pool
Facilities that develop a talent pool of local nurses will spare themselves a handful of staffing headaches. Healthcare facilities with reserves of potential job candidates won’t have to scurry for nurses when coverage is needed.
The following are the most important reasons for healthcare facilities to have access to robust talent pools:
- Solutions to staffing shortages: A talent pool can help streamline hiring and onboarding. The facility can quickly recruit qualified nurses without having to find talent through traditional recruitment systems, which are often more extensive and take more time.
- Easier workforce planning: A facility can simplify its workforce planning by having a flexible pool of talented nurses available on demand during staffing and patient census fluctuations.
- Compliance with nurse-to-patient ratios: A talent pool and reserve of nurses lead to safer nurse-to-patient ratios. Safe staffing ratios ensure that hospitals and other medical centers comply with state guidelines and regulations regarding patient safety.
- Cost savings: A facility with a talent pool of nurses saves time, money, and resources. Recruiting travel nurses and using staffing agencies often lead to higher costs because of the sourcing and pre-screening processes these strategies entail. Building a talent pool reduces costs by eliminating the need for constant recruitment processes.
The takeaway? A healthcare talent pool provides a ready-to-go list of qualified nurses, often ready to work at the drop of a hat. This pre-built database of skilled nurses allows facilities to fill in gaps in coverage in less time and cost. It also simplifies the hiring process, eliminating the need for a staffing agency.
How to build an effective healthcare talent pool
Finding the right nurse and matching them up quickly with the right opportunity is a rare occurrence. In other words, it’s hard to find a nurse with the appropriate skills to provide excellent patient care in a short amount of time. Talent pools serve to fix this problem head-on.
Building an effective healthcare talent pool isn’t hard and can be done by following a few steps:
1. Identify your facility’s staffing needs
Evaluate what your facility needs. To begin, you may want to consider the following:
- Duration of understaffing: How long has your facility been understaffed?
- Severity of current staffing gap: Are your staffing gaps causing delays in treatment or compromised patient care? Are these gaps leading to missed diagnoses or worsening health outcomes?
- Skill gaps among current staff: Is your current nursing staff competent and skilled enough to handle their roles and responsibilities? Do you require nurses with specialty skills, such as intensive care unit (ICU) nurses or oncology nurses?
- Forecasted demand: What is your healthcare facility’s projected demand for new and skilled nurses? When do you anticipate a need for contingent staffing (i.e., what seasons, periods, or times of year are you likely to need temporary staff?)?
Having a talent pool strategy in place is key to building, identifying, and retaining top talent in the healthcare world. Evaluating your facility's needs will help you make smart choices and investments when it comes to recruiting nurses. After this, you can move on to step two.
2. Establish connections with local nursing schools
Recruiting new nurses, such as recent graduates, is a great way to build a pool of nursing talent. To do this, start by making connections at job fairs or by providing facility tours. Reach out to nursing schools and offer a mentorship or staff-shadowing program to recruit and find local nurses who are eager to get their feet wet in the profession.
Begin to foster a relationship with these new nurses. If these new nurses show promise, add them to your database of potential candidates to cover future staff shortages.
3. Leverage external talent pools of local clinicians
Remember when we said building a talent pool by using a per diem staffing platform was a match made in heaven? We weren’t kidding. Per diem staffing platforms give facilities access to thousands of local, qualified nursing professionals looking to fill-in and pick up open shifts. These platforms offer a straightforward method for covering unfilled shifts in the short-term while helping facilities find qualified nurses to join their team on a full-time basis.
Nursa provides an affordable alternative to internal talent pools and staffing agencies. Facilities can use Nursa to fill short-term staffing gaps on a per diem basis and hire nurses at no additional cost if they’re a good fit. Plus, 33 percent of clinicians on Nursa are looking for the right full-time role, making the platform an excellent tool for finding new talent.
4. Build your facility brand
Building your facility’s brand is another important aspect of building a talent pool.
You can do this by setting your facility apart with a distinct mission and vision. For example, the UCLA Medical Center's mission is "to deliver leading-edge patient care, research, and education.” Their vision is “to heal humankind, one patient at a time, by improving health, alleviating suffering, and delivering acts of kindness."
Building a brand for your facility helps make a good first impression not only with your customers but also with potential staff. You may also want to offer unique benefits and compensation packages, employee satisfaction surveys, and employee development opportunities. These strategies are important for retaining your current nursing staff and recruiting new talent.
5. Turn recruitment into a talent pool opportunity
When recruiting for open positions, don’t dismiss candidates who aren’t yet good fits. Some new nurses may take longer to adapt to new nursing environments, but this doesn’t mean they will not make excellent additions to your team in the long run.
To keep new nurses motivated, provide feedback and ongoing support. This can be done through nurse shadowing and mentorship programs. Keep their information on hand so you can check back in when better-suited opportunities appear.
6. Maintain your talent pool
Once you develop your talent pool, make sure you foster this relationship by staying in touch with prospective candidates on a regular basis.
Keep connections warm by sending out newsletters about the “happenings” of a facility or inviting them to your facility’s community board. These actions can keep your nurse talent pool engaged and ensure that your facility stays in nurses’ minds and at the top of their lists of facilities to work for.
Creating a talent pool does not need to be expensive
Last-minute call outs, nurse burnout, and high turnover rates are all leading to a decrease in the quality of patient care. These grave inconveniences can be solved by building a talent pool.
Evidence of this can be seen in the experiences of Hillsboro Health and Rehabilitation Center and Forest Grove Rehabilitation and Care Center. These facilities used Nursa to source PRN nurses to cover weekend shifts, holidays, and last-minute call outs.
The first step to building a talent pool is recognizing a facility’s staffing strategy needs. From there, a facility can customize a recruitment plan that allows them access to a sustainable and highly qualified group of nursing candidates.
Ready to start building your talent pool? Sign up with Nursa for on-demand staffing and find local and qualified clinicians eager to start filling in shifts for your facility today.
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