It would be an understatement to say that the COVID-19 pandemic had a dramatic impact on the U.S. healthcare industry. While providers were ultimately able to cope with the sudden rise in patients during the pandemic, it accelerated changes that had already begun to take place and emphasized the importance of other practices.
Some shifts, like the move to electronic health records (EHRs), had already been well underway. Others, like telehealth, experienced a dramatic upsurge. However, even telehealth was gaining acceptance before COVID-19. According to American Well, the number of physicians who visited patients via video rose from 5% in 2015 to 22% in 2019, an increase of 340%.
With the increasing digitization of the healthcare industry, it is not surprising that hiring practices are changing not only for physicians and nurses but for healthcare support staff as well. More than ever before, healthcare support staff members need to have a wide range of skills ranging from hard skills like computer literacy to soft skills like communication and organizational skills.
More healthcare companies are adopting pre-employment testing to identify applicants that possess the necessary skills. This helps them ensure the right JobFit--matching the candidate with the right job and vice versa. With skills testing, you can improve and streamline your hiring process as well as supercharge employee development.
How Pre-Employment Testing Can Improve Your Hiring Practices
With assessment software like the eSkill Talent Assessment Platform, you can easily integrate pre-employment testing into your company’s ATS system to make it easy to screen candidates based on their skills and knowledge. This means you do not have to waste time sorting through hundreds of resumes; instead, you will have a pre-screened pool of candidates with the skills that are required for the job.
The eSkill Test Library includes assessments that measure commonly-needed skills, as well as skills tests that are specifically designed for the healthcare industry. For instance, basic computer skills tests can show you whether an applicant has experience in using basic Office programs, internet browsers, or operating systems, fast and accurate typing or data entry skills. You can also choose pre-employment testspre-employment tests for specific support roles such as medical billing, medical transcription, and medical coding.
You can choose from more than 800 pre-employment tests in the Test Library or create your own skills tests by choosing questions from one or more tests. You can add the questions you need and include video questions where candidates record answers to questions you have prepared.
The Test Library also includes assessments that assess candidates’ soft skills such as customer service abilities, communication skills, and organizational abilities. Each of these assessments allows you to create a profile for each candidate which you can use to make the best possible hiring decisions. Best of all, these assessment tools allow you to avoid unconscious bias because every result provides you with quantitative data that you can use to compare candidates.
Reskilling and Upskilling with Skills Testing
According to Deloitte, employees in the healthcare industry will need to be able to adapt to an increasing level of technology use in the workplace, from telehealth to EHRs. For healthcare organizations, this means that professional development for both new and current employees is more important than ever.
Skills testing should be an important part of your development programs because you can use the results to create a snapshot of an employee’s skills. This can help you to identify knowledge gaps and determine where proficient employees might best focus their development efforts to increase their value to the workforce and develop skills that will help them meet their career goals.
For instance, if you determine that an employee has a firm grasp on computing basics, you can have them learn higher-level functions on many of the platforms they use consistently. You may decide to have them learn new skills, like billing or coding, which will make them more flexible.
Other skills tests are useful when you want to ensure that your employees are up to date on important regulations that are associated with their roles. For example, tests on HIPAA policy can help you ensure employees know how to manage patient information so you can ensure compliance with federal laws. You can also create skills tests to be sure employees are current on organizational policies and procedures.
As you continue training and development, you can have employees retake skills tests and compare the results to their earlier results. This helps you to determine how well employees are absorbing training and whether you need to adjust your training methods and strategies. This helps you ensure your development programs are serving your employees and your organization well.
Requests a demo to learn how pre-employment testing can help you to hire and develop the best healthcare support staff.
Employers also take pre-employment assessments to determine if certain job candidates possess the necessary skills and qualities required for the position they are applying for.
If you are a human resources manager, you may also use these pre-employment assessments to help you weed out those applicants who do not possess the required skills for the job.
When you are looking for ways to improve your productivity and efficiency as a business houses, you need to make sure that you have the best employees with you because that is where the trick lies.
Hence, you must put your resources in hiring the best people for the job those who can perform better.However, it is not only about finding the right workforce but also about finding the right individual who are ethical and truly professional for that you have to look at the previous experience and their history and that is possible through a good Background Screening Malaysia company.The need for a background check;The first thing is that people are not what they look like from the outside, people can be glib talkers and can do you, people can be deceiving, you should never make ways for wrong people to come into your business.For instance, a person with a bad history of handling finances will do the same thing in your organization because human is a creature of habit and it hardly changes that habit.
A person with abusive history with employee and women is more likely to do the same thing; hence, it is vital for you find out more about your employees before you take them in.It would pave the way for better work culture and safer business practices, for that reason, you should take it seriously and you must know how to go about it.Find a good agency:You have to make sure that you are working with a good agency and for that you might have to look for some references, you must make sure that you are working with smart invitation agency because they can bring you accurate info about your employees.You must make sure that you are working with a company that is certified because only a certified company can get you the right and the best solutions moreover when you are dealing with these sensitive issues, you should always avoid dubious companies; here are a few things to help you with it.You have to discuss with them and find out what is the corporate investigation service that they offer such as Pre Employment Screening, post-employment checks and background checks, in this way, you will have the right infoYou have to find out how good they are in terms of keeping things private and confidential because you need to have your confidentiality and your employees’ confidentialities intact and preservedYou should look at their professionals and find out whether they are trained or not and what backgrounds they have come from such as military, law enforcement, or other security departments because people from these backgrounds can get you the next services that you needThe fact of the matter is that youshould and must make sure that your office is safe place and only true professionals are working and for that, you have to work with a smart corporate investigation agency that can help you verify and give you the right info about your employees.
Leverage MeritTrac pre-employment aptitude test to hire the right talent quickly and reliably.
A pre-employment aptitude test is a systematic approach of screening candidates for quality recruitment.
