The following is a guest article by Ranil Herath, President of Emeritus Healthcare.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to significant changes within the healthcare industry – it accelerated digital transformation, increased virtual care and telehealth, and forced health systems to adapt to this new digital landscape. While these advancements were developed to improve patient care and resolve some urgent issues facing the healthcare system, they also came with a series of unwanted consequences for healthcare workers and the industry as a whole.
Digital transformation in the healthcare industry has put an incredible burden on healthcare workers. Caregivers have had to adapt to an almost entirely different workspace and job than they had 2 years ago – in addition to physical precautions to protect against Covid-19 and increased clinical burden, they had to deal with new technology to deliver care. They were required to continue optimizing patient care and building trust with patients with technology but were given no tools or training to adapt to this new virtual and technological environment.
The lack of training to adapt to this setting, on top of the added stresses of a global pandemic, have clearly contributed to the “Great Resignation” among healthcare workers. A recent report from Elsevier shows that 47% of US healthcare workers plan to leave their positions by 2025. This rate is entirely unsustainable, but it will only increase if nothing is done to address the skills gap at hand. Worse yet, as more experienced healthcare leaders accelerate their retirement timelines, new leaders with less experience will be left to deal with much bigger problems.
Sustainable infrastructure needs to be put in place to address the “Great Resignation,” burnout, and the skills gap in healthcare and to ensure sustainable and lasting improvements for healthcare workers. Below I’ve outlined how healthcare leaders can do that.
Addressing resistance to technology
The first problem that needs to be addressed is healthcare workers’ resistance to – or apathy towards – technology. At the root of this resistance to new technology is the same resistance to change faced by many industries. Many healthcare workers are comfortable with what they know and like many people, experience fear of the unknown. This results in many not really embracing or adapting to new technology, using it as intended, or using it to its full capabilities.
We can resolve this resistance by demonstrating how technology can assist physicians in improving functionality, streamlining their workflow, and improving the quality of care they are able to provide. The reality is that technology will never be able to replace the need for human interaction and the years of expertise that physicians have – but it can reduce some of the administrative burdens that have been shown to cause burnout. Our first responsibility as leaders is to have these conversations and shift the narrative around health tech among our colleagues.
Developing effective and sustainable training programs
Healthcare leadership teams need to create a digital strategy for their organizations and identify the skill gaps in their clinical teams. With that information, leaders must then implement the right tools and training programs to upskill and reskill their team members and allow them to expand their expertise.
But it’s not just the team members who need upskilling – healthcare leaders are going to need training as well. Healthcare leaders are facing some significant challenges including staffing shortages, a new regulatory landscape with the shift to value-based care, and the rise in consumerism driving care out to the community. There needs to be leadership development programs in place, including education on digital transformation, so that the leaders of the future are empowered to solve current and future challenges.
Working with IT leaders to develop technology that addresses needs
Finally, it is important for the IT and technology teams to understand their role in this process and the impact of the technology they are developing. There are countless examples of times where health IT has missed the mark – one notable instance being Google’s attempt at creating an EHR platform through Google Health. It ultimately failed because the company neglected to consider some of the intricacies of health data and interoperability.
With the digitization of healthcare, IT professionals in the healthcare space must have a better understanding of the needs of the healthcare industry. To address this, IT developers should welcome healthcare workers’ input from the initial stages of development. Once the tech is implemented in a health system, there must be regular communication between the developers and those who are actually using the technology to assess what is working and what isn’t working. Through these conversations, IT professionals will be able to continue to develop technology that better suits and supports healthcare workers’ needs. When both IT professionals and healthcare workers are aligned in the development process, real progress can be made.
The “Great Resignation” and the strain on the healthcare industry is a massive problem, and addressing the technology skills gap is one small piece of the puzzle. But as leaders and experts in the field, we all need to be working together to address these different pieces and create a better future for the healthcare industry – for patients, providers, and leaders.
You’re right that the “Great Resignation” is a massive problem, and addressing the technology skills gap is [a very] small piece of the puzzle. Same problem in the education industry, where teachers are leaving rather than succumb to the woke requirements to push Marxist Critical Race Theory and “boys-will-be-girls” rather than the 3R’s. In a sense, corporate medicine and corporate education have adopted the destructive Disney model and are getting worker blowback.
In medicine, the main problem is the CDC/FDA/NIH and politicians, where everything that they’ve pushed over the last two years has been exactly backwards and anything BUT scientific. And the medical establishment has discarded centuries of protocol to slavishly embrace these edicts from rogue government agencies that serve Big Pharma at the expense of the people. And so a low-mortality Asian flu was used as an excuse by woke bureaucrats and politicians to destroy the world’s economies and social cohesion in the name of “The Science”. And the credibility of the medical establishment is now toast.
The real problem to be addressed is wokeness, where the irrational and symbolic is more important than the rational and substantive. So good luck with your “small piece of the puzzle.”