Section 2 | Data and Technology to Support the Workforce
Technological Supports
Hospitals and health systems across the country have invested in technologies to support population health management, clinical integration, convenience and access for patients. Technology also can play a critical role in supporting the health care workforce. There is a broad range of technologies that can be utilized to support the workforce, including machine learning, artificial intelligence and marketplace platforms.
These technologies are not intended to replace staff, but rather to enhance the ability to do work, retain people and reduce burden, particularly in light of staffing shortages. For example, artificial intelligence is used to help employees and clinicians do their jobs more efficiently, eliminate burdensome tasks and improve work-life balance.
Hospitals and health systems can focus on technology to enhance the workforce experience in five areas:
- Support individuals and teams through digital wellness solutions, leadership training and guidance for managers on building and engaging diverse teams. Use digital means to offer easy access and greater spread.
- Alleviate burden by using tools that can help with administration, revenue cycle or other routine tasks. This can include intelligent automation through robots and artificial intelligence.
- Enhance flexibility with agile scheduling solutions, predicting demand, or creating enterprise staffing solutions or labor pools.
- Reduce friction by digitizing human resources functions, streamlining routine interactions and smoothing processes like credentialing.
- Optimize care delivery by using artificial intelligence, predictive analytics and virtual health options that allow more flexibility and remote staffing, greater team-based coordination, clinical just-in-time training and improving the user friendliness of electronic health records.
Top Takeaways for CEOs
1 Embrace technology as a way to support your health care workforce.
2 Change-management strategies will be critical to address the cultural shifts associated with this technology.
3 Partnership can help support your organization’s ability to implement solutions in the most effective and efficient way.
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As you work to identify the best approaches to using technology to support your workforce, it is important to remember that technology will be only one piece of a successful workforce transformation. Understanding the current workload and workflows and the appropriate team composition must be determined before technology solutions are investigated.
In addition, there will be no one-size fits all solution for hospitals and health systems across the country. Solutions will be local and must take into consideration the needs and resources available at your hospital or health system.
Similar to the work discussed in previous chapters, evaluating technology to support the workforce requires leadership and organizational commitment, policy and process adaptation and new ways of doing business.
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- Inventory current technologies, identify current usage trends and the potential for the technology to reduce burden, remove barriers to care or address workflow friction. In addition, it may be beneficial to analyze the cost of these technologies and any long-term cost savings that are anticipated from their implementation. When rolling out new or improved technologies consider staged changes to reduce burden on the workforce.
- When assessing how technology can enhance your workforce, it is important to start by evaluating the work that is currently being done by your workforce and identifying which tasks or functions could be replaced or improved with technology and the benefits that could accrue from those changes. This evaluation can be done for a project, team, unit or the organization as a whole.
- It also is important to understand the models of care that are currently being utilized and assess whether new models of care delivery — for example, utilizing teams in different ways — could be implemented to further support your workforce. As new or different technologies are considered, ensure input from the full team.
- Once those assessments are complete, you can begin to define goals, identify the changes that must be made, and select the technology necessary to support those goals. It is important to remember while setting goals that technology should be used to decrease, not add, burden on the workforce.
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- As discussed above, there are many ways that technology can be implemented to help support your workforce.
- Implementing each of these technologies will require a culture shift and it will be important to have a change-management strategy to handle implications of transitioning to new technologies.
- Develop a plan to engage key stakeholders, including front-line and core managers in evaluating technologies and providing input. Those on the front lines likely have the best view of where changes can most help.
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- Integration of new technologies will require support from senior management, specifically as it relates to the policy and process changes that will be needed to ensure that technology will be successful. It may be helpful to identify those leaders that are ready to take on this work, and leverage those innovative leaders as champions within your organization to guide this work.
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- Sustainability will depend on addressing the many barriers that exist when implementing technology. This includes cultural, technical and data management barriers that may slow down adoption and implementation of technology. It will be important to identify these barriers and create the pathways necessary to address them as technology is implemented.
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Implementing technology to support the health care workforce is an effort that requires partnership with digital solution providers. The process of evaluating what solutions are available and which providers may be the right partners can be challenging.
AHA has partnered with AVIA, the nation’s leading digital transformation partner for health care organizations, to bring new solutions and tools to support AHA members on their digital journey. Through AVIA Connect, hospitals and health systems gain access to a curated databased of solution providers with which their peers have chosen to work. They also get timely content through an AHA online community and the opportunity to join discussion groups with their peers at other hospitals and health systems across the country
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AVIA Connect Guide
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