Why Marketing and Talent Acquisition Must Be Allies in Healthcare

In healthcare, a strong brand has always been essential for earning community trust, but today, it carries even greater weight. A brand is no longer just a promise to patients; it’s a proof point to employees. Every message, from a billboard to a benefits brochure, shapes how people perceive your organization’s values, stability and leadership. When marketing and recruitment align, every dollar spent on advertising works twice as hard—attracting both the patients you want and the workforce you need. This brand multiplier effect is what modern healthcare organizations must harness to stay competitive and to keep doors open.

In decades past, healthcare marketing largely focused on bringing patients through the doors. Meanwhile, human resources and talent acquisition focused on recruiting clinicians and staff. Today, those silos must come down. The strongest healthcare brands are built when marketing and HR speak with one unified voice—not just to patients but to potential employees as well. Job seekers behave like consumers. Before they apply, they explore your website, social channels, reviews, media coverage and leadership statements. If those touchpoints feel disconnected or out of touch, candidates subconsciously interpret it as instability. But when marketing and HR create a cohesive brand experience, prospective applicants recognize a system that knows what it stands for and how it treats its people. A strong, unified brand accelerates decision-making, increases offer acceptance and improves retention before an employee’s first day.

Healthcare leaders know this is critical. According to a 2023 survey from the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), “workforce challenges (e.g., personnel shortages)” ranked as the top concern among hospital CEOs for the third consecutive year. Financial challenges came in a close second.

That tells us something important. Staffing is not just an HR problem; it’s a business problem. It affects quality of care, patient satisfaction and ultimately the bottom line.

When marketing and HR communicate a unified brand—one that signals both excellent patient care and a fulfilling, supportive workplace—it resonates with both patients and prospective talent.

The Financial Stakes Are Real

A unified brand also gives health systems something they desperately need in this moment: stability. When competing hospitals are slashing budgets, consolidating service lines or experiencing turnover, a consistent and confident brand becomes a signal of reliability. Patients feel it, employees feel it, job candidates feel it. A strong brand calms the noise around an organization and helps it navigate workforce volatility with less disruption.

Good recruiting is expensive. According to a 2024 article from PracticeMatch, the cost to recruit a physician can range from $180,000 to $250,000 when you factor in search-firm fees, marketing, interviews, relocation, sign-on bonuses and incentives.

But the cost of not filling a position is often far greater. As shown on MissingPhysician.com, a vacancy can result in substantial revenue loss: The national average net physician revenue is estimated at $2.4 million per year. The site lets organizations model their vacancy cost (lost patient revenue, reduced capacity and delayed growth), showing that even modest reductions in “time to fill” can recover millions in revenue.

This is not just “HR fluff.” This is strategic value. A well-staffed, well-branded organization is more resilient, financially and operationally.

The Brand of Care and the Brand of Culture Are One and the Same

When potential employees visit your website, review your careers page or see your social media presence, what do they experience? Do they only see patient-facing messaging? Or do they also sense a culture grounded in support, purpose, collaboration and mission?

Marketing is perfectly positioned to shape that employer brand narrative. By working hand in hand with HR and talent acquisition, marketing can translate internal values, workplace culture, growth opportunities and community impact into a compelling story. And honest stories are what draws top clinicians and staff to stay, not just to join.

In today’s healthcare landscape, a brand is built from the inside out. If an organization’s internal culture doesn’t align with its external messaging, patients and the workforce notice. Marketing teams have a  critical role in ensuring that the brand reflects reality and amplifies it. When employees feel represented and can own the brand, they become your greatest ambassadors—more effective than any advertising campaign.

That matters now more than ever. The competitive hiring environment in healthcare has intensified. According to AMN Healthcare and others, physician recruitment today is characterized by fierce competition, high turnover driven by burnout and an urgent need for retention strategies that go beyond compensation.

By aligning recruitment with the brand and treating talent acquisition as part of the broader organizational identity, hospitals and health systems can position themselves as employers of choice.

Why a Trusted Partner Matters—20 Years Running

At AB&C, we have operated at the intersection of marketing, branding and talent acquisition for more than 20 years. We have helped organizations reposition themselves not only to attract patients but to attract and retain clinicians and staff to deliver exceptional care.

Those decades of experience—and the growing urgency of today’s workforce and brand challenges—led us to develop our new integrated model that unifies patient-facing brand strategy with talent acquisition and employer branding.

We’ve seen firsthand how aligned branding and strategic recruitment can help organizations overcome workforce shortages, reduce reliance on interim staffing, close vacancies faster and strengthen culture. We know the data, the challenges and the human side of this work. And we’re prepared to guide healthcare organizations through the new realities ahead—from physician shortages to brand awareness, culture alignment and patient volume growth.

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Healthcare CEOs are under extraordinary pressure. Workforce shortages, cultural strain, rising competition and shifting patient expectations are reshaping what it takes to lead a health system. Solving these challenges requires more than a marketing partner—it requires people who understand how hospitals actually work.

At AB&C, our differentiator isn’t just our integrated marketing and talent acquisition model. It’s the people who built it. AB&C’s unified approach integrates patient marketing, employer branding and workforce strategy into one coordinated engine for growth. Our managing directors, Maria Mongelli and Shawn Kessler, as well as our healthcare experts have spent significant portions of their careers working in hospitals before joining AB&C.

Maria Mongelli, Managing Director, Health

Maria brings 30 years of healthcare marketing and communications experience, shaped by more than a decade working inside the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Crozer Health. That firsthand experience has given her a deep understanding of how brand, culture, reputation and patient experience are formed within the realities of hospital operations.

At AB&C, Maria has built and leads the agency’s healthcare division, partnering with health systems across the country to clarify their brand, grow patient volume and strengthen market position. Her work spans such major organizations as MedStar Health, AtlantiCare, Cooper University Health Care, Phoenix Children’s, Bronson Healthcare, Mary Washington Healthcare, Nemours, HCA, Trinity Health and Rutgers Cancer Institute.

Maria is known for bringing a strategic yet pragmatic approach to healthcare marketing, building systemwide initiatives, aligning leadership around brand strategy and helping organizations communicate with authenticity in moments of growth and change.

Shawn Kessler, Managing Director, Recruitment

Shawn brings 25 years of recruitment marketing and employer-brand leadership, beginning his career at Geisinger, where he led physician recruitment marketing and gained an inside view of how workforce challenges shape clinical operations. His early exposure to the realities of staffing, culture and organizational performance informs his approach to workforce strategy today.

Since joining AB&C, Shawn has built and grown the agency’s Recruitment marketing division into one of the country’s leading healthcare-focused practices. He has partnered with health systems nationwide—including ChristianaCare, Kaiser Permanente, WellSpan Health, Guthrie Clinic and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island—to develop employer brands, reduce vacancies, improve retention and build more resilient talent pipelines.

Shawn is also the author of Built to Attract, a practical guide for healthcare leaders on how culture, brand and employee experience fuel talent attraction and engagement. His work centers on helping organizations turn their culture into a competitive advantage—connecting who they are with the people they need to succeed.

Nikki Laska, Healthcare Account Director

Nikki brings 20 years of hands-on healthcare marketing and communications experience, shaped by her roles across such major organizations as MedStar Health, CVS Caremark, Virtua Health and the Maryland Department of Health. Her work has spanned systemwide marketing leadership, public health communications and high-stakes operational messaging, giving her a clear understanding of how healthcare organizations function on the ground.

Nikki has a rare ability to see how brand, culture and workforce truly intersect inside clinical environments. She understands the nuances of communicating with physicians, frontline staff and administrators, as well as the communities they serve, and she brings that operational awareness directly to her work at AB&C.

At AB&C, Nikki works across both the Healthcare and Recruitment marketing divisions. Her crossover role is essential to this model, ensuring message consistency, brand accuracy and strategic alignment across patient-focused campaigns and employer-brand initiatives. She serves as the connective tissue between the two disciplines, helping clients present one cohesive story to both the patients they serve and the workforce they need to attract.

Tara Moore, Associate Managing Director, Recruitment

Tara brings nearly 30 years of combined healthcare and recruitment marketing experience, including 15 years at Geisinger, where she gained a deep understanding of how patient access, frontline workflows and staff experience shape the overall health of an organization. That early exposure to the operational side of care delivery informs the way she approaches workforce strategy and client engagement today.

For the past 16 years at AB&C, Tara has been a key member within the Recruitment division, guiding clients through complex hiring challenges. Her work spans recruitment marketing and employer brand development, always grounded in an understanding of what candidates and employees experience on the ground.

As AB&C’s diversity specialist, Tara also plays an essential role in helping organizations elevate their DEI efforts. She provides thoughtful guidance on creating a culture where people feel valued, supported and empowered—an approach that strengthens both recruitment and retention.

Nancy D’Argenio, Associate Managing Director, Public Relations

Nancy brings more than two decades of experience in communications, storytelling and media relations. She began her career in radio broadcasting before moving into healthcare public relations. That early newsroom exposure strengthened her instincts for identifying compelling stories, understanding audience behavior and knowing exactly what makes the media pay attention.

Nancy went on to spend more than 13 years at Nemours Children’s Health, where she led a wide range of PR efforts for one of the nation’s leading pediatric health systems. Her work included local and national media relations, issues and crisis communications, clinical storytelling, executive visibility and the management of high-profile special projects. She has secured coverage across major outlets and is known for finding the most meaningful way to elevate a story.

Since joining AB&C, Nancy has become a key member of the healthcare team, helping organizations strengthen their reputation, communicate with clarity and share the stories that define who they are. She also plays a critical role in issues and crisis communications, helping organizations navigate sensitive situations with clarity, accuracy and confidence. Nancy excels at translating complex clinical topics into human-centered narratives that resonate with patients, communities and the media.

A Team Purpose-Built for Today’s Healthcare Challenges

Backed by a broader team of DEI specialists, digital architects, recruitment strategists and healthcare communicators, AB&C brings unmatched experience in both patient and workforce storytelling. We understand the pressure points, the cultural nuances, the operational constraints and the leadership realities health systems face every day.

That lived experience is why our integrated model works. It is simply the name for what our team has been doing for years: uniting brand, culture and workforce strategy to help health systems grow stronger from the inside out. We don’t guess what motivates clinicians or what builds patient trust—we’ve experienced it firsthand.

If your organization is ready for a brand that strengthens culture, attracts talent and earns patient trust, AB&C has the team to get you there.

Sign up for the eBook

Drop your name and email and we’ll send you our eBook on how AI, recruitment, and brand strategy are reshaping healthcare competitiveness, and what leaders must do now to stay ahead:

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For years, healthcare organizations have relied on a familiar playbook: Marketing brings patients in. Talent acquisition brings people on. But as every healthcare leader knows, that playbook doesn’t work anymore.

Great Healthcare Brands Are Built From Within

Today’s workforce shortages threaten service lines, destabilize operations, erode patient experience and eat away at revenue. At the same time, the fight for patient volume has never been more intense. These challenges don’t live in separate silos, and the solutions can’t either.

That’s why AB&C is putting a stake in the ground: We’ve created an agency model that fully integrates brand marketing and talent acquisition under one roof.

Not as a one-off campaign. Not as an experiment. But as a new national standard.

And it’s a standard built specifically for the C-suite, the leaders responsible for quality, growth and financial performance in an environment where both margins and morale are under pressure like never before.

Why This Integration Matters Now, and Why the C-suite Can’t Ignore It

Healthcare CEOs have been clear. For the third year in a row, workforce challenges top their list of concerns, outranking even financial pressures. Staffing isn’t just an HR issue. It’s a business issue.

Vacancies stall growth.
Burnout fuels turnover.
Delays frustrate patients.

And the financial impact is staggering. Recruiting a single physician can cost up to $250,000, and yet the lost revenue from leaving that role vacant can exceed $2.4 million a year. Multiply that across dozens or hundreds of open roles, and the math becomes existential.

So the question for CEOs has shifted. It’s no longer “How do we improve marketing?” or “How do we hire faster?”

It’s “How do we build a brand strong enough to attract patients AND the workforce required to serve them without doubling our costs?”

That’s the question AB&C is built to answer.

We’ve Been Solving This Long Before the Industry Knew It Had a Problem

While others are just now waking up to the collision of marketing and recruitment, AB&C has been operating in this space for two decades. We’ve been the only agency deeply embedded in both sides of the healthcare brand equation. And we’ve helped health systems across the country:

• Reposition their organizational brand
• Drive patient volumes
• Build authentic, differentiated employer value propositions
• Reduce vacancy rates
• Lessen reliance on contract labor
• Increase employee retention
• Strengthen patient perception
• Recover millions in lost revenue

We didn’t create this model because it was trendy. We built it because our clients needed it and because the realities of the workforce demanded it. This model formalizes what we’ve been doing for years, uniting brand, culture and workforce strategy under one integrated marketing model.

The Expertise Healthcare Leaders Need, All in One Place

Today, AB&C delivers a truly integrated approach that includes:

• Brand strategy and systemwide marketing
• Full-funnel recruitment strategy and campaigns
• Employer branding and EVP development
• Workforce research, segmentation and analytics
• Creative, digital and media teams aligned across both sides of the house

This is what makes us the C-suite’s agency: we help solve the two hardest—and most expensive—challenges facing healthcare leaders today, with one coordinated strategy and one unified partner.

Ready to Lead the Next Era of Healthcare Branding?

If you’re ready to strengthen your brand—for patients, employees and the long-term financial health of your organization—we’re ready to lead the way.

Connect with AB&C and take the first step toward building a brand that delivers on what healthcare truly requires: excellent care powered by an exceptional workforce.

Sign up for the eBook

Drop your name and email and we’ll send you our upcoming eBook: The Top 10 Healthcare and Recruitment Marketing Trends for 2026

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