A Conversation with Paige McAndrews of St. Charles Health System and Michael Dunne
Even though St. Charles Health System in Central Oregon has plenty of surgeons and physicians making life and death decisions, the job that Paige McAndrews, the Manager of Talent Acquisition has, has plenty of its own challenges.
“It’s a challenge to recruit for many of the positions we have at St. Charles because Bend is such an expensive place to live,” she says. “We’ve had to ramp our pay and benefits just to be able to fill so many of the positions we need to staff.”
McAndrews, who grew up in Bend and knew from an early age that she wanted a career in healthcare, believes that, despite the cost of living, a real benefit to her job is being able to recruit people to a wonderful community such as Bend and Central Oregon.
“I obviously love Bend and the combination of a nice city and beautiful outdoor places keeps me here and when we recruit nationally, we use Central Oregon’s beauty and quality of life as a big selling point,” McAndrews says.
One of her biggest challenges is recruiting nurses and certified nursing assistants (CNA’s) which face a national shortage throughout almost every state. Her and her team have sought creative solutions to address this shortage.
“One benefit from the pandemic is St. Charles for the first time looked to hire CNA’s right after graduation and this has helped us fill critical roles, and I imagine that is something we will continue to do into the future.”
