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Panel Highlights FOH Summit 2024: Emerging & Future Healthcare Professions

Moderator: 

Dr. Gary Kaplan, Immediate Past CEO of Virginia Mason and Member of the Board of CommonSpirit Health, 

Panelists: 

Dr. Jeffrey Golden, Director, Burns and Allen Research Institute & Vice Dean for Research and Graduate Education, Cedars Sinai Medical Center

Dr. Noya Shiloh, Deputy Head of Internal Medicine at Sheba Medical Center

Professor Eng Wei HO, CEO, SingHealth

Dr. Dumani Kula, CEO, Busamed 

The panel addressed critical issues surrounding workforce challenges in healthcare, the integration of technology, and the development of strategies to evolve healthcare professions to meet future demands. Below are key highlights from the discussion.

Advancing Digital Literacy in Healthcare

Dr. Noya Shiloh addressed the challenge of enhancing technological literacy across a diverse healthcare workforce with varying ages, experiences, and educational backgrounds. She emphasized the importance of reducing administrative burdens and designing intuitive technological tools that seamlessly integrate into healthcare workflows. “Technological literacy and data literacy are so hard to acquire… our job is to make technological tools, as user-friendly as possible.”  By simplifying technology, the goal is to facilitate easier adoption without extensive training, thus enhancing efficiency.

Creating Sustainable Career Paths

Dr. Jeffrey Golden discussed the dual challenges posed by an aging workforce and the transient nature of younger generations like Gen Z and Gen X. He suggested that “We really need to think about how we evolve positions that people see as a lifetime position, a career that they’re going to be able to advance in over time.”  He also focused on the necessity of integrating various roles within healthcare teams, and avocated for the efficient integration of data specialists into healthcare teams to ensure that everyone works at the peak of their abilities and avoids tasks that could be handled by others, optimizing job functions within the healthcare system.

Dr. Gary Kaplan sumarized this part of the panel emphasizing the urgency of developing more effective retention strategies; “One of the most expensive things we do is invest in people, hiring them, training them, a 20% first-year turnover rate is really not sustainable.”

Tailoring Healthcare Solutions to Local Needs

Dr. Dumani Kula provided insights into the unique challenges faced by healthcare systems in South Africa. He stressed the importance of understanding the significant disparities in healthcare training and resources. “The technologies that we tend to use, even from an EHR point of view, tend to be borrowed from other countries, we’re trying to retrofit something that was built for a completely different system.” He emphasized the necessity of developing tailored healthcare solutions that cater specifically to the context of South African hospitals, highlighting the mismatch between generic solutions and specific local requirements.

He also argued for the potential benefits of harnessing technology that fits seamlessly into the local healthcare framework, thus enhancing the efficacy and efficiency of healthcare delivery without overwhelming providers with unsuitable systems.

Rethinking Healthcare Training 

Dr. Kaplan emphasized the importance of healthcare delivery science, which involves a deep understanding of workflow processes and their optimization. He pointed out that current training methods are outdated, often preparing individuals in ways that do not align with the evolving needs of the healthcare system. The traditional training approach creates a mismatch between the skills taught and the demands of modern healthcare roles, suggesting a need for a fundamental reevaluation of how healthcare professionals are educated.

Dr. Noya Shiloh advocated for a shift in medical training to focus more on the fundamental humanistic aspects of being a doctor, such as the role doctors play in society and culture. The goal is to balance high-tech tools with a strong foundation in traditional doctor-patient relationships to maintain the integrity and humanity of medical practice.

AI in EHR Systems: Enhancing Healthcare Efficiency and Quality

Professor Eng Wei HO shared from their experience at SingHealth how integrating AI tools and technological tools into the electronic health records (EHR) system can help to alleviate the workload and to improve the quality of life of our workforce.:

  1. Improving Diagnostic Capabilities: AI technologies can enhance diagnostic capabilities within the EHR system. Synergizing the skills of physicians with AI will help achieve greater diagnostic accuracy and efficiency than either could alone. This integration is not about replacing physicians but augmenting their capabilities to make better clinical decisions.

 

2. Enhancing Quality of Life for Healthcare Professionals: Technologies like Ambient AI which  convert voice to text, help reduce the time healthcare professionals spend on mundane tasks such as filling out forms and typing clinical notes. This technology aims to free up time for more critical thinking and patient interaction, improving both the quality of care and the job satisfaction of healthcare workers.

3. Improving Operational Efficiencies: Using AI to streamline operations within the EHR system, such as patient scheduling and workflow management will help reduce patient wait times and alleviate the administrative burden on healthcare staff, making clinical operations more efficient.

Professor Eng Wei HO concluded by emphasizing the importance of adapting to contemporary realities rather than idealizing the past. By using technology to remove mundane tasks, the goal is to make healthcare roles more meaningful and satisfying for the younger generation, helping them find purpose in their work and reducing the likelihood of burnout.

Balancing AI and Human Expertise for Better Outcomes

Jeff Golden focused on the role of AI in healthcare, discussing its capabilities and limitations compared to human professionals. AI is particularly adept at managing and analyzing data that would be overwhelming for humans, such as genomic data, which consists of billions of base pairs. However,  AI struggles with tasks that involve less data or rare medical conditions that occur in fewer than 100,000 casessituations  – where human professionals excel. He argued that the future of medicine should not be about choosing between AI and human physicians but rather leveraging both for their respective strengths. He cites a personal contribution to a 2017 JAMA article, stating that “Physicians who adopt AI will not be replaced by computers, but rather, those who refuse to integrate AI into their practice might be replaced by those who do.”

Strategies for Workforce Retention and Reducing Turnover.

The panel reached a consensus on utilizing technology strategically to enhance the work environment, reduce burnout, and retain skilled professionals. They advocated for retention strategies that align with the needs of a modern workforce, including leveraging technology to lighten the workload and improve job satisfaction. The discussion concluded by emphasizing the importance of aligning healthcare training with contemporary needs, bridging the gap between technology and its practical application, and enhancing patient care through better workforce management and technological integration.

Panelists agreed on the need for healthcare education to evolve, reflecting the technological advancements and changing workforce demographics. They emphasized that while technology is indispensable, the human aspect of healthcare; compassion, empathy, and personal interaction, remains irreplaceable. Dr. Kaplan summarised the session, stressing  the need to restore the joy and purpose in healthcare professions, thereby making healthcare careers rewarding and sustainable.

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