01:48 PM CDT on Tuesday, September 2, 2008
By SHERYL JEAN / The Dallas Morning News sjean@dallasnews.com
Dallas-Fort Worth's large medical community is only getting bigger as hospitals and medical offices expand and add jobs to keep up with the area's fast growth.
Take Baylor Health Care System, which averages about 900 job openings a month at more than 90 facilities across the region, said chief human resources officer Marshal Mills. It hired more than 4,500 employees in the past 12 months and is on track for the same in the next year, he said.
Health-care providers are expanding and offering more outpatient and specialty care to meet the needs of the growing Dallas-Fort Worth population. The nation's fastest-growing metro area is in particular need of nurses, therapists, pharmacists and technicians.
In the past year, 22 hospitals and outpatient centers were built, are under construction or are planned in Dallas, Fort Worth and surrounding counties, according to HealthLeaders-InterStudy.
Texas Health Resources, for example, is hiring 3,500 people a year under a 10-year growth plan that includes a six-story tower being built at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, said administrative director of system human resources Dana Cates.
Health care is considered recession-proof because people always need such services.
Studies show that health care staffing lags two years behind the national economy, said Marc Bowles, chief marketing officer for Dallas-based Delta Companies, which specializes in health-care staffing. Also, aging baby boomers "ensure that health care isn't going anywhere," he said.
Nurses are needed most. Various reports predict the U.S. nursing shortage will reach 500,000 to 800,000 by 2025. Median hourly pay for a registered nurse in Texas is about $30, or $62,109 a year based on a 40-hour work week.
This summer, Niamat Chandani moved from Florida to take a job as a registered nurse at Baylor Heart and Vascular Hospital in Dallas.
"Cardiac nursing is needed everywhere," said Ms. Chandani. Her skills are in such demand that she has been able to find work in her native country of Pakistan, in Uganda and in a few U.S. cities.
Companies also are hiring workers for nonclinical jobs such as billing and technology.
Parkland Health & Hospital System's move this summer to a larger medical records building as well as its move toward electronic records required more technology and clerical workers, said Danny Davila, interim director of workforce planning and recruitment.
In a competitive market, companies take different approaches. Baylor recruits nurses from countries such as the Philippines and Canada. Parkland plans to launch a social networking page on Facebook in October to recruit.