The healthcare workforce shortage isn’t going to magically solve itself in the next decade. At the same time, job descriptions will be changing, and even top executives will need to update their skill sets. Healthcare leaders need to change the way they recruit—right now.
For starters, healthcare organizations have to get more aggressive when it comes to hiring, says Robin Singleton, head of healthcare practices for the recruiting firm DHR International. That might mean breaking with tradition. Hospitals don’t have to wait until physicians are in their second or third year of residency, for example. They can start wooing them in year one.
For rural areas, that’s all easier said than done: The shortage of healthcare workers has been “looming” for years now. In rural areas, it’s already here.
“Without immediate changes to the supply pipeline today, [the shortages] will reach crisis proportions in areas where the maldistribution of caregivers has always been a chronic problem,” says Tim Size, executive director of the Rural Wisconsin Health Cooperative, a professional services and networking organization that’s owned and operated by 35 rural acute and general medical-surgical hospitals.
With an eye toward staffing the hospital of the future, RWHC worked with the University of Wisconsin to create the Wisconsin Academy of Rural Medicine, a rural medical school within a medical school. The program is being expanded to create the rural residencies and training tracks needed to absorb the 25 students who will soon be graduating each year.
“We’re working with a statewide public-private sector consortium to develop the data and forecast tools we need to best inform how and where we modify workforce supply,” Size says. “And we’re working to implement hard policies regarding the total number of medical school graduates and residencies our state will need in 2030.”
Leaders should be writing job descriptions for positions that don’t yet exist, Singleton says. In the next five to 10 years, new healthcare regulations will call for new core competencies in a number of departments. IT staff must be well-versed in ever-changing clinical technology. Coding staff will have to meet the challenges of the expanded ICD-10 billing system. Revenue cycle staff will need to be adept at managing self-pay accounts. Physicians and nurses will have to get fully immersed in CPOE and other electronic medical records modules.
Executive job descriptions will change, too, as organizations seek leaders who can develop and lead accountable care organizations and respond to other business challenges.
The hospital CEO of the past was focused on attracting patients and getting physician referrals, says Kathy Love, CEO of Clark Regional Medical Center, a 79-staffed-bed hospital in Winchester, KY. The CEO of the future must be able to manage patient populations collaboratively and form partnerships with physicians and other providers along the continuum of care.
“The days of the ego-driven hospital CEO are over. You have to be relationship-driven—sometimes with the people you once considered your competitors,” Love says. “It’s not all about your hospital anymore; it’s about how your hospital fits into the larger system”
This piece accompanies The Hospital of the Future cover story in the July issue of HealthLeaders magazine.