The Houston Methodist System and Texas Children’s Hospital are preparing hiring campaigns to ensure their Woodlands facilities are fully staffed when they open in the next two years.

Administrators from both hospitals agree nurses are most in demand. The shortage of full-time registered nurses is expected to reach 2 million vacant positions nationwide—and 70,000 in Texas alone—by 2020, according to the Texas Organization of Nursing Executives.

With that shortage in mind, both Houston Methodist and Texas Children’s have partnered with a local university nursing program to get student nurses into their hospitals with the intention of hiring them in the future.

“It really helps because the students get familiar with the hospital and its culture,” said Anne Stiles, director of nursing at Sam Houston State University. “It’s also to the hospital’s benefit to have our students come there. We have a partnership with both facilities and will continue to grow that.”

However, with more than 500 positions to fill—about 40 percent are nursing-related—Houston Methodist is rolling out a comprehensive recruitment strategy, said Debra Roberts, director of the human resources department at Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital. Roberts said the hospital will begin looking at director and manager level positions next summer and expects to have staff positions in place about four months prior to opening.

The recruitment strategy will target candidates through direct mail and media. Roberts said she is confident the hospital will be fully staffed when it opens in 2017.

The Houston Methodist system has 1,500 open positions, but Roberts said The Woodlands hospital is not competing with other system facilities to fill its own jobs.

“I don’t see it as a competition within our system,” she said. “We’re a very collaborative team and will work together as a team to fill the positions with the right individuals.”

For its part, Texas Children’s Hospital has launched a local, regional and national recruitment strategy to fill between 500 to 600 positions, said Michelle Riley-Brown, president of Texas Children’s Hospital The Woodlands. Riley-Brown said she aims to staff about 50 percent of these positions with external candidates and the remaining half with existing Texas Children’s employees.

Texas Children’s is recruiting leadership positions for The Woodlands hospital and has launched efforts for staffing the other positions.

While Texas Children’s anticipates opening outpatient services in October 2016 and inpatient services in April 2017, Riley-Brown said they are not competing with other local hospitals for talent.

“We’re looking for people who are interested in being part of a startup pediatric hospital,” she said. “The major benefit I see is being affiliated with Texas Children’s Hospital and being located north and not having to travel all the way to [Houston].”