Recruitment, Readiness, and Retention of Providers at a Field Hospital During the Pandemic

In response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, the State of Maryland established a 250-bed emergency response field hospital at the Baltimore Convention Center to support the existing health care infrastructure. To operationalize this hospital with 65 full-time equivalent clinicians in less than 4 weeks, more than 300 applications were reviewed, 186 candidates were interviewed, and 159 clinicians were credentialed and onboarded. The key steps to achieve this undertaking involved employing multidisciplinary teams with experienced personnel, mass outreach, streamlined candidate tracking, pre-interview screening, utilizing all available expertise, expedited credentialing, and focused onboarding. To ensure staff preparedness, the leadership developed innovative team models, applied principles of effective team building, and provided just in time training on COVID-19 and non-COVID-19-related topics to the staff. The leadership focused on staff safety and well-being, offered appropriate financial remuneration, and provided leadership opportunities that allowed retention of staff.