Employee retention is currently top of mind for most organizations as the healthcare sector continues to wrestle with staffing shortages and widespread burnout.
Healthcare is the second-largest sector hit by the Great Resignation. President and CEO Rick Pollack of the American Hospital Association warned that a recent analysis revealed a shortage of up to 3.2 million healthcare workers by 2026. He stated this is “…a national emergency that demands immediate attention from healthcare leaders and policymakers at every level of government.”
The Dawn of Digital Transformation
At the same time, changes are sweeping the industry as more health systems head down the digital transformation path. According to Forrester, digital transformation is “…the necessary but challenging journey of operating digital-first with the speed and nimbleness to change rapidly, exploit technology to create lean operations, and free people to do more complex tasks.”
In a survey conducted by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, in collaboration with the Scottsdale Institute, 60% of surveyed technology executives said their organizations were no more than midway through their digital transformation journey.
Clearly, the digital health revolution is already underway, but not nearly over.
As this revolution takes hold, many employees have concerns that their positions will eventually be replaced by technology solutions, making them hesitant to fully embrace digital transformation. Organizations should do everything they can to prepare their teams and processes for the future of healthcare and ensure employees feel valued along the way.
So how do you pursue digital transformation while concurrently promoting employee retention?
3 Ways HealthTech Innovation Supports Employee Growth
Digital transformation provides the chance to not only reshape the healthcare landscape with improved care delivery, but also help employees realize greater job satisfaction – a critical indicator of employee retention. Joint Global Leader of PwC’s People and Organisation Practice, Bhushan Sethi states that “Retaining the right talented people and enhancing their skills can help (companies) survive today’s challenges and drives competitive advantage in the future.”
Here are 3 ways you can leverage your organization’s adoption of healthtech solutions to attract, develop, and ultimately, retain team members.
1. Free Up Time for Strategic Work
When skilled employees must spend time on monotonous tasks, it can lower morale and cause feelings of dissatisfaction. By leveraging technology to automate tedious, manual processes, you can drastically mitigate burnout by giving your staff time to focus on more meaningful work relevant to the jobs they were hired to do. The freedom to concentrate on higher-level activity leads to better clinical care, patient experiences, and overall operations.
2. Expand Knowledge and Skills
With more healthtech tools in place, your employees can learn new skills that help advance their careers. Technology affords professional development opportunities that empower employees to pursue growth rather than get stuck feeling stagnant. And with 74% of CEOs concerned about the lack of available key skills among employees, companies must invest in the future by focusing on upskilling.
3. Take a “Future-Ready” Approach
Arming your employees with advanced technology equips your organization to be “future-ready” for the next phase of healthcare transformation. When your entire team knows how to continually adapt to new methods and technologies, you will experience less resistance from team members who maintain a non-digital mindset. Your business can quickly take on new initiatives when everyone is on board and up to speed with innovation.
How Test Automation Helps
SureTest’s test automation solution, in particular, helps health systems in their digital transformation journeys by drastically improving accuracy and speed around what was once a tedious, time-consuming manual task: EHR, third-party, and enterprise application testing.
With SureTest, health systems eliminate up to 80% or more of manual testing activities, lifting a huge burden off staff members. Your organization can gain back tens of thousands of hours every year, and with a super-fast ramp-up and only a couple of hours required from each team member, leverageable automation happens in the first 4 – 6 weeks.
We combine SureWorks®, our extensive collection of automated workflows, with SurePersona® Engine, a powerful tool that emulates the exact actions of every team member for every testing script. It enables your healthcare team to spend less time dealing with the EHR and more time caring for patients.
Rather than diminishing the analyst role, test automation expands it by freeing staff to concentrate on more complex projects and apply their specialized knowledge to strategic initiatives rather than redundant activities. Not only that, but analysts have opportunities to grow skills in other areas, learn new technologies, and gain greater value from their jobs.
With higher levels of job satisfaction comes happier employees who feel valued in their roles and committed to their work, increasing the chances that they will continue staying with your organization.
What’s Next
Need more info about addressing employee demand for meaningful work? CEO Laura O’Toole spoke with CHIME President and CEO Russ Branzell about ways the healthcare IT ecosystem can win the “absolute talent war” by enabling staff to do innovative and strategic work instead of staying in a reactive and tactile mode.
SureTest explores how test automation “future proofs” your team, improves morale, and results in higher employee retention.And, for more information about how SureTest actively works to minimize the impact of staff shortages, check out this recent blog post.