Three leaders on the future of healthcare jobs

Quality and safety, work-life balance, population health—three experts share their hopes and predictions for the future of healthcare jobs and employment and anticipate the challenges ahead.

Gary Kaplan Chairman and CEO Virginia Mason Health System

The healthcare workforce of tomorrow, like today, must continuously evaluate care-delivery processes with an unwavering focus on improving quality, safety and the patient experience. The ability to think critically, collaborate and perform multiple, often-complex tasks is and will be essential.

Healthcare organizations must sustain a workplace culture in which safety and mutual respect are the norm. This environment enables team members to experience joy in fulfilling the mission of caring for others.

Healthcare employees in the future, as now, must value teamwork to ensure a remarkable patient experience; embrace integrity and do what's right for patients and each other; share a commitment to excellence; and remember the reason for being in healthcare is to serve patients. Caring for individuals in need is a trust we in healthcare must earn every day. Our work is about our patients, not ourselves.

Dr. David Nash Dean Jefferson College of Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University

If you look out five years, there will be more physicians in C-suites than there are today. They'll have training beyond medical school and residency. Physicians are crucial to reducing waste and improving the quality and safety of the care we deliver.

A second development you'll see is the rise and dominance of the chief population health officer. That could be a doctor, but also someone with advanced training and experience in the areas of epidemiology, wellness and disease prevention. It will be the responsibility of those individuals to design and implement population-based programs to improve population-based outcomes.

Finally, you're going to see a tremendous emphasis on folks with advanced analytics training, especially in population health intelligence. There will be a merger between the basic tenets of population health, big data and predictive analytics. Imagine, if you will, doing precision medicine for thousands of people.

Christina Ryan CEO The Women's Hospital

As a healthcare provider, it is imperative that we create a workplace that protects, promotes and supports the physical, mental and social well-being of its employees. We will be more proactive to demographic changes and generational values within our community and workforce by developing an environment that enhances healthy work-life balance. Silos will be replaced or eliminated by teamwork and collaboration, and productivity and efficiency will be measured by outcomes that employees can see and understand. Employee engagement and alignment will continue to be key indicators of success.

The Women's Hospital in Newburgh, Ind., was ranked the No. 1 provider in Modern Healthcare's Best Places to Work in Healthcare for 2015.