Digital Healthcare Revolution: Training & Developing for Accurate, Efficient Care - Essay Sample

Introduction

The current healthcare system is characterized by the use of digital technology and other developments to improve disease diagnosis and treatment. The developments include the use of artificial intelligence, genomics, robots, and digital medicine. Human resource recognizes the current and future digital healthcare technologies that are installed to promote accuracy, efficacy, and smooth healthcare professionals. The improved medical care requires extensive training and development of both the clinician and the public. The human resource department has been developing strategies and practices help employees develop the skills needed to keep pace with this technology. The practices include planning education and training research and development, and incentive programs. According to Slovensky, Malvey, and Neigel (2017), emphasize that clinical professionals require education and training programs to acquire skills that meet the current and future technology. In the 21st century, medical professionals use digital technologies such as telemedicine to treat chronic conditions such as diabetes, rehabilitation, cardiovascular disease, and respiratory conditions. Human resource practices are offered in different time frames in accordance with employees' comprehension.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Research and Development

One of the practices human resources managers is to conduct research and development in the changing technologies. The role of the human resource manager is to provide research and speculation on the current and future technological advancements. To invest in the successful technology that would improve patient healthcare, human source managers need to have comprehensive information on the latest technology. Hemmat et al. (2017) describe the importance of conducting future research in healthcare technology before equipping the employees. The research can be performed by forecasting based on current and previous methods. Research needs to be done on the preferred diagnosis and treatment methods from different patients.

The Orientation of Both the Employees and the Patients

Patients are the central focus of the healthcare system and they need to be included and oriented about new technology. The human resource manager should work with patients to determine the technology that meets their needs. Improving employee engagement through communication and feedback would be the HR priority to make them engaged in the company activities. First, HR would talk to all employees to let them know that they value their feedback on all the activities in the organization. Moreover, orientation should be done before training to familiarize the employees with new technology. Orientation may also help in providing solutions to their problems in the hospital. Employees would feel appreciated and cared for when HR acknowledges their contribution to the organization, for instance, sending them emails to let them know that the hospital services will improve if they use the new technology such as artificial intelligence to diagnose illnesses. During orientation, HR should communicate directly to employees to help in analyzing the reasons why employees are less engaged. Responding quickly and positively to the issues raised by employees about new equipment would promote healthcare services offered in the hospital.

Education and Training

Continuous education and training are some of the key practices that HR uses to help employees acquire new technical skills. HR provides a learning environment to help nurses, doctors, surgeons, and other professionals to help them keep up with new technological and technical advancements. The training of new technology should be relatively free to encourage employees. HR should allocate time for training to avoid confusion in hospitals. The time taken on training depends on the skills required and the proficiency of trainers. However, it is important to follow a structured list of the tasks to be covered in a specified time frame to reduce validity. Providing continuous training to employees would also improve their human and technical skills and their productivity would increase due to improved efficiency (Mancheno-Smoak, 2008). HR would start training them to keep them up to date skills to increase their productivity. Continuous support and learning such as employee seminars, conferences and workshops give them current required knowledge and skills.

Topol (2019) conducted a survey on how new technology has improved in the healthcare workforce. The research found that advances in cloud computing, mathematics, algorithm design, and computing power have enhanced healthcare employees' ability to analyze, interpret and decision making through the utilization of artificial intelligence. However, the study found a gap due to a lack of technological skills especially to older employees that limited the adoption of such technology. According to genomics, digital medicine, and AI have become integral to medical fields hence, the necessity for HR to train their employees on these advances. Genomics helps the professionals to accurately diagnose a wide range of diseases based on genetics. Moreover, the technology detects the possibility to develop diseases and also maintain patients' confidentiality (Topol, 2019). The other area that employees need to be trained on is digital medicine that improves healthcare interaction with the patients. Telemedicine such as telephone triage and video appointments helps patients to receive consultation without visiting the hospital. The AI training would include in the introduction and use of robots to perform specific procedural technical tasks, for instance, surgical robotics. In most cases, robotic assistance is applied when performing orthopedic and abdominal surgery. Moreover, the employees should also acquire skills in the recent technology that uses snake robots to perform gastrointestinal surgeries (Topol, 2019). Robots can also automate high-volume repetitive tasks, for instance, the allocation of medicines in a pharmacy.

Incentive Program

Following the training, HR should develop an incentive program to improve employee's productivity by recognizing and rewarding those that perform best using the new technology. Employees are like children in a school who are motivated with gifts to improve their performance. The human resource manager should determine the best way to reward them, for instance, promote or increase salary to employees who acquire new technical and technological skills for continued performance improvement. HR should recognize the best team by sending them emails and portraits written: "the best-performed employees" or "well-done." I would give incentives such as financial rewards, gift certificate or a vacation retreat to short-term achievements. When employees work expecting a reward, they become more motivated and try to outdo each other to get the limited rewards.

Figure 1: Timeline graphic for implementation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, human resource management has a key role to play in the adoption of current and future technology in healthcare. HR must develop a learning environment to ensure continuous training of employees. Therefore, the HR manager should provide an opportunity where clinicians access knowledge and skills about genomics and digital technologies. To develop the necessary technological skills to the employees, HR has to develop strategies such as research and development of the latest and upcoming technology such as genomics, digital medicine, and AI. The implementation of the training process will take one year and it will start by the orientation of the subjects and tasks that will be covered. The education and training are subdivided into three parts; theoretical, technical and practical training. Each of these subdivisions will take duration of three, six, and three months respectively. HR must promote digital literacy to help advanced healthcare interaction between professionals and patients. The implementation of these strategies will help the employees to meet the need of both current and future technological advancements in healthcare.

References

Hemmat, M., Ayatollahi, H., Maleki, M. R., & Saghafi, F. (2017). Future research in health information technology: A review. Perspectives in health information management, 14(Winter). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5430110/

Slovensky, D. J., Malvey, D. M., & Neigel, A. R. (2017). A model for mHealth skills training for clinicians: meeting the future now. Mhealth, 3. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5505927/

Topol, E. Preparing the healthcare workforce to deliver the digital future the Topol Review: An independent report on behalf of the secretary of state for health and social care.; 2019. Retrieved FROM https://topol.hee.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/HEE-Topol-Review-2019-printable.pdf