COVID-19 has not so much rebooted U.S. healthcare’s workforce as it has hastened transformative changes in staffing strategies that were taking shape before the pandemic got here.
That’s the view of subject matter experts who have co-authored a new report published by Wolters Kluwer’s health division.
“The pandemic offered early glimpses of how adaptive and flexible the workforce could become,” write Anne Woods, DNP, RN, and colleagues. “Health systems rapidly onboarded newly minted nursing and medical graduates and redeployed physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and out-of-state clinicians to respond to urgent needs.”
Along the way to spotlighting three concepts the authors encourage healthcare leaders to proactively embrace, the authors point to some telling personnel statistics buttressing their case.
In a nutshell, they suggest, the coming years will put primary care providers and nurses in the driver’s seat while saddling many provider orgs with shortages of physicians and, to a lesser but nontrivial extent, pharmacists.
The three concepts, rendered here as imperatives:
1. Modernize your team-based care. The COVID crisis has apparently prompted many hospitals to adopt tiered interdisciplinary models as a way to serve more patients with fewer people, Woods and co-authors note. “That contemporary version of team-based care is a more efficient way to deliver care that can, among other advantages, help address clinician shortages,” they write.
2. Embrace every applicable technology. Painting with a broad brush, the authors recommend clinicians become proficient in everything from telehealth and remote patient monitoring to “how to access, analyze and use data gleaned from electronic health records and a host of other data sources.”
3. Train and get trained. The shift from in-person to virtual educational settings brought on by the crisis has made clear the criticality of seizing learning opportunities regardless of format, the authors suggest.
They highlight four training must-do’s as especially important while care delivery is shifting: incorporate training into new delivery models, anticipate 21st-century learning styles, address mental health and whole-patient care, and pursue practice/academic partnerships that focus on practice readiness.
The report, which is one in a series from Wolters Kluwer Health, quotes the executive director of clinical education and professional development at 28-hospital Banner Health.
“During the pandemic, we have taken nurses outside their specialty care areas and used different models of care delivery,” says the director. “The challenge hasn’t necessarily been a lack of nurses but a matter of how quickly and safely we could get those nurses up to speed in a new specialty area. When we finally lift up our heads from all of this, I see the opportunity to formalize expert care-team models.”
Access the five-page report here.
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.