#253 - Healthcare M&A Is Up 33% in 2026: Franciscan Health's Kellie Woods on Building the Pipeline First

Featuring Kellie Woods, Manager of Talent Acquisition, Franciscan Health

Most people running talent acquisition at a large health system started at a large health system. Kellie Woods didn't. She spent years at two independent community hospitals in Northwest Indiana, watched both get absorbed, and now covers nursing, physician practices, home health and hospice across eleven hospitals with a team of seven. That path shows in how she reads what is coming.

🏥 A Hospital Is a Small Community

The boiler tech, the cook, the housekeeper, all of them move patient outcomes. Talent acquisition sits in that same line. Without hiring, there is no hospital. Key Takeaway: recruiters are not back office, they are the front end of patient care.

🤝 Give the Hiring Manager Grace

Kellie's team read Let Them together, and it changed how they handle slow approvals. The manager sitting on your interview guide may have just come off a code. Action: assume the best, then follow up anyway. Both things can be true.

📈 Growth Is Back, and This Time It Is a Choice

Q2 2026 healthcare M&A is up 33 percent, and two of every three deals came from systems seeking partners rather than avoiding collapse. UHS paid $835 million for Talkspace. Freestanding EDs keep opening. HR Risk: TA hears about the strategy after the ink dries, then gets asked to staff it. Franciscan is building its own DO program in Crown Point to grow the physicians it cannot hire.

🔁 Never Leave a Candidate on the Table

Twenty-three years in, her best tip is the plainest one. Circle back. Keep a list of the people for whom the timing was wrong. Remember one or two things about them. They remember that you remembered.

The pipeline gets built before the deal is announced, or it does not get built at all.