The nature of work across almost every industry is being disrupted by a number of factors. Rapidly evolving digital technology is driving increased automation, affecting the proximity of where work is performed, and giving rise to new and open talent models. With so much change in the air, many provider organizations are understandably apprehensive about how to grapple with such exponential change and its implications on how, where, and by whom work gets done. What these organizations need to keep in mind with this shift is the immense opportunity to alleviate current pain points like nursing shortages and physician burnout, and refocus professions on mission oriented, fulfilling work.
World Economic Forum founder, Klaus Schwab, has dubbed this transformation in the way work is performed “the Fourth Industrial Revolution”—making the distinction that it is not about replacing people, but rather how new technologies are “fusing the physical, digital, and biological worlds.” This augmented workforce combines people and machines to get things done in a way that is not only more productive, but also more rewarding to the worker.
Interestingly, while 69 percent of US health care providers consider the augmented workforce to be an important trend, only 33 percent feel the same way about robotics, cognitive computing, and artificial intelligence. What these providers may not appreciate is that all these areas are part of the same wave of change.
And while 100 percent of health care providers surveyed in the 2017 Deloitte Human Capital Trends report plan to make significant progress in adopting cognitive and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the next three to five years, none have made significant progress in adopting these technologies.
One reason for this may be that many leaders of health care provider organizations anticipate that the scale and pace of change will overwhelm their workforce and compound current challenges, such as a short supply of nurses and a burned out physician population. What these executives may not be considering is that these shifts – and subsequent disruption to the automation of tasks, proximity of where work is performed, and evolution of new and open talent models – represent a tremendous opportunity to help resolve those current challenges.
In technological terms, the future is already here. But in many provider organizations, the plan for working in that future is still on the drawing board.
As each provider organization seeks to map out its own workforce strategy, it needs to adopt an exponential mindset: Each part of the workforce will evolve not along a single linear path, but in response to a collection of forces. Rather than fearing this wave of change as an overwhelming challenge, provider organizations should proactively seek out the opportunities for augmentation and automation in clinical workflows – and pinpoint where both clinicians and patients will benefit from new technologies, innovative talent models, and expanded locations where care is delivered.
Read more about the future of provider organization professions and the workforce of the future.
