Increasing healthcare workforce gap and howit can be bridged

Harshal Goyal,Vice President-Talent Solutions,NLB Services talks about some of the problems contributing to

Healthcare professionals are the spine of the healthcare industry and its systems. The provision for quality healthcare services is directly dependent on these professionals’ availability and accessibility. However, WHO has already predicted a global shortage of 10 million health workers by the year 2030.

Some of the problems contributing to the continuous shortage of healthcare staff include:

◆ Under-investment in training and education of healthcare workers

◆ Gap between employment and education strategies in healthcare systems

◆ Deployment difficulties in remote or underserved locations

◆ Rising attrition and immigration, mainly in low and lowermiddle-income economies

Today, countries at all stages of socioeconomic development are facing varying challenges in educating, employing, deploying, retaining, and managing the performance of their healthcare workforce.Attrition from the health workforce is contributing to the critical shortage of healthcare workers, creating a hurdle for countries seeking to reach their universal health coverage goals. It is now important to study the ongoing attrition rates to conduct effective workforce planning. The world may soon begin to fall short by millions of nurses, unless we act to stem the flow of attrition and build a better healthcare workforce. In order to do that, let us first understand the current situation of healthcare workforces around the globe.

The above facts and figures about healthcare attrition and nurses’ rates of intention to quit suggest that the shortage of healthcare professionals is now recognised as a global crisis. Without immediate action, this healthcare workforce gap shall continue to grow wider. Here are a few solutions that can help the healthcare industry better

Continuous

of healthcare staff in India

manage its workforce.

Suggested measures to address looming workforce challenges

To effectively respond to the workforce shortage in healthcare, we must concentrate on the following key areas:

Establishing governance frameworks

Governments should be converging their efforts toward healthcare workforce planning and by joining hands with the private sector to meet future needs. The industry will benefit with the establishment of an empowered group for the national healthcare workforces and development of Healthcare Professional Registry & Accreditation Systems. Formulating standard treatment guidelines for workforces will help. They may also run targeted campaigns to draw talent for their healthcare workforce.

Upskilling healthcare professionals

Every country has its own set of challenges but the stakeholders must learn to empower and retain the valuable healthcare resources in the wake of high attrition. They must consider healthcare workforce planning that takes into account the health needs of the population, population growth and disease burden. The key to retaining quality staff is to improve the quality of talent by imparting knowledge and simultaneously strengthening the learning approaches, for students as well as the faculty or subject matter experts. It is necessary to set up upskilling initiatives through innovative partnership models so that the professionals remain highly skilled and relevant.

Investment in healthcare education infrastructure Systemic gaps in skills and knowledge bring forth the need for not just knowledge assistance and upskilling for career advancement, but also demand investment in formal education. Subsidies or financial aid must be provided to healthcare education institutes to build and operationalise medical colleges and to also leverage prevailing

Attrition from the health workforce is contributing to the critical shortage of healthcare workers, creating a hurdle for countries seeking to reach their universal health coverage goals hospitals for the purpose of training and skilling of healthcare workforces. Furthermore, healthcare enterprises should be encouraged to channel their Corporate Social Responsibility funds to offer specialist training to nurses and doctors.

Incentives for the healthcare workforce

Incentivisation of the workforce is imperative and can be done at an early stage by offering incentives like stipends during internships, easy access to loans at lower rates of interest and free medical insurance. Other incentives for healthcare workers may include occupational hazard insurance and preference for children’s admissions which can go a long way in drawing and retaining talent in the workforce.

Leveraging digital academies

Digital literacy in healthcare workforces, especially in rural locations, will be key to the success of state-run initiatives. Holistic endeavors aimed to drive digital health literacy

(DHL) should include eLearning platforms and programs that can be used digitally to provide faculty with a structured, user-friendly set of assistive tools to teach and monitor the progress of learning professionals. Such virtual academies also help unlock the true potential of emerging technologies by providing simulation-based experiences for medical education. healthcare professionals today can make shortages of the future way worse. Let us come together to train and retain these valuable resources, and make the world a healthier place. EXPRESS HEALTHCARE 25