By Tom Ackerman  |  [email protected]

The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is experiencing a spike in patient growth, and 200 jobs are potentially being offered Friday. 

UI officials said the Children’s Hospital will open this summer and some growth is expected, though patients are arriving in larger numbers than predicted — with inpatients currently occupying more than 88 percent of the capacity and climbing.

Sara Caven, a UIHC program director, said the move to recruit more workers is also due to the increasing numbers of sick people, though officials are not sure why.

Although officials are unsure how to specifically assess the unforeseen growth, Rebecca Schwertfeger, a Human Resources official who assesses hospital-wide recruitment needs, said statewide insurance changes may allow more people to get more health-care services than before.

“In a hospital, you never want to say your beds are full,” she said. “It’s a good thing to see the growth, but it isn’t what we were expecting.”

She said areas of hiring in the job fair include nursing, respiratory therapy, operating rooms, documentation/coding, hospitalists, and advanced-practice providers.

Caven said that since the New Year, more than 500 people in nursing have been hired and close to 700 positions have been filled, which includes UIHC employees transferring to the department. Additionally, 136.5 full-time equivalent new staff nurse positions have been hired.

She noted that there are currently around 3,500 employees in nursing.

Caven believes the growth is occurring as a result of UIHC’s reputation as a leading health-care employer, as well as more focus being placed on the organization as the Children’s Hospital prepares to open soon.

“It feels like we started to really pick up the pace in recruitment since January of 2015,” she said. “Since then, we’ve continued to recruit.”

Caven is eager to hire at the fair because she feels the hiring process can become muddled in a large organization. She said the fair will be a positive way to reach out to the community.

“Because it’s such a big and complex organization, members of our own community struggle to navigate in the process,” she said. “We found this as opportunity to help people with this.”

UI undergraduate student Camille Krall, who interns at patient-financial services helping to determine whether applicants to the department meet certain qualifications, hopes to find a job at UIHC when she graduates. But she said most employees come from other hospitals rather than the university.

“It really just boils down to looking at the job descriptions,” she said. “Unfortunately, we have to be pretty picky about whom we bring in. We can get 80 applications for a job.”

She noted that many students do not apply to UIHC as a first job as a result of the competition.

Krall feels her internships have been more beneficial than entry-level career opportunities, though she hopes to see more available in the future. As an intern, she said, her eyes were opened to the extent of growth as applications have been coming in.

Krall will attend the fair as an intern, and she is excited about the opportunity to hire prospective students.

The fair will take place Friday at the University Capitol Center from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.