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Midway through 2021, and it is shaping up to be a large year for transformation in the healthcare industry. The industry has seen a large push for telehealth options and growing ways for patients to be in charge of their data on the front-end, but what technology innovations are healthcare leaders focusing on in human resources, financial management, and supply chain?

People First Technology

Experts suggest that organizations that put their employees first not only have higher retention rates, but are able to attract top talent, and that talent wants to be valued for their work and accomplishments. While this starts with the culture, technology can also help hospitals and health systems advance their talent acquisition, employee engagement, and retention strategies.

Improving and automating the hiring process: Talent shortages are one of the main challenges affecting hospitals under pressure to improve quality care and patient safety. Talent management solutions help organizations take a strategic approach to finding, developing, and growing talent for current needs and into the future. Technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) are able to analyze resumes and job applications to deliver more information about candidates and reduce implicit biases, making the hiring process fair and equitable while accelerating the best profiles through the talent pipeline.

Streamline scheduling: Along with a talent shortage, nurses have been on the frontlines since early in the pandemic. Overworked and burnt-out staff may be a result of ineffective scheduling and inadequate staffing. Workforce management systems offer the ability for demand-driven scheduling, making sure health systems have staff with the right skills available to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs. Additionally, allowing employees the flexibility of self-scheduling, to make changes to their own schedules throughout the day and for the coming week, improves morale among the workforce.

Minding Mental Health: HR executives’ top priority in 2021 is employee wellbeing and mental health. With new COVID variants spreading across the U.S., the pandemic continues to have negative effects on the mental health of healthcare workers. New technologies are available to measure how people are feeling and ways to help managers and leaders understand employee wellbeing. These tools can be used in addition to human efforts to aid employees in getting the help they need.

Firing Up Financials

Finance executives have also faced unprecedented challenges over the last year, including the revenue impact from the shutdown of elective procedures and a rise in supply and labor costs. As a result, hospital CFOs have had to look at ways to effectively reduce expenses and drive ancillary revenue as well as have long-range strategies to ensure the organization is more nimble and agile as pandemic-related uncertainty continues.

The move to automation: Digital transformation activity is picking up and finance is utilizing automation to remove repetitive, time-consuming tasks and reengineering processes for greater efficiency. This allows finance professionals to focus on higher value activities and enhance forecasting, improve collaboration, and provide strategic insights to the business.

Re-evaluating payment models: Over the last year, many hospitals and health systems saw patient demand and fee-for-service income plummet, forcing some clinics to furlough staff, cut wages and benefits, or shut down completely. This has finance professionals rethinking payment models, especially as the push for more transparent pricing grows.

Insights Across the Supply Chain

Supply chain disruptions were a large problem as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Supply chain leaders understand the need to build up the resilience of their supply chain to avoid future interruptions of critical supplies, whether that’s looking to domestic manufacturers or evaluating how inventory is managed.

Improve integration to limit leakage: While revenue cycle management budgets are expected to decline, finance and IT leaders are still expected to lower costs, which may come from ensuring supply chain integration to limit revenue loss.

Breaking down bottlenecks: Increasing transparency and collaboration through big data can help hospitals optimize the delivery of care for each patient. Predictive analytics can be leveraged to match products with specific patient needs, combined with automating and speeding the procurement process, to get patients the care they need as efficiently as possible.

While the last year has been a large transition period for healthcare, it has brought a large push for innovation, improving the patient experience, the employee experience, and the operations of healthcare organizations.

Optimism at Work Starts at the Top

Creating an environment of positivity at work may seem like an impossible goal. However, optimistic leaders who inspire confidence and hopefulness tend to have more engagement, less turnover, and higher revenues.

Recessions, industry collapse, global unrest, and large mergers and acquisitions along with the new normal that is emerging from the pandemic can have leaders spending more time focusing on ways to mitigate risk than building an optimistic work environment. This causes tension that slowly, or not so slowly, disperses throughout an organization.

Leading with optimism shifts the way you look at potential risks or problems.

Optimism leads to achievement because it assumes that every challenge has a solution. It also shifts your leadership mindset so that you better leverage your colleagues and staff, rather than trying to do everything yourself.
When leading with optimism, understanding that everyone has different ways of thinking, approaching issues, and communicating is important. Learning the best way to communicate and discuss challenges and ideas with your individual team members allows you to tap into their unique abilities. This also ensures that everyone feels heard and respected, thus giving them a feeling of optimism in their work.

There are three key principles to leading with optimism:

Have a servant leadership approach - In business and life, approaching people and situations with a servant leadership mindset will dramatically impact how others see and relate to you. Cultivating a “we” approach in yourself and your team fosters a service mindset. It also creates a level playing field for all. This will not only boost optimism and engagement, but also productivity and innovation.

Accept imperfections - Perfection is unattainable. You can strive for 80-90% perfect but expecting complete perfection from yourself or others will sap motivation and leave everyone frustrated. It will also prevent your team from coming up with the next great innovation or idea. Instead of striving for perfection, look for ways to learn from mistakes and use them as opportunities for growth.

Be open to new ideas - Sometimes the best way to tackle an issue is to crowdsource a resolution. Brainstorming with friends and colleagues can bring to light a potential solution that you may not have thought of on your own. The key is to be open to any and all ideas, no matter who proposes it or how outlandish it may seem at the time.

Leading with optimism is a mindset shift that allows you to look at each challenge as a puzzle that can be solved. It fosters an environment that empowers everyone to be an active participant in solving the puzzle, which leads to a more positive and inclusive culture, greater retention of top talent, and increased productivity and innovation.

Tim Atkinson is a self-described optimist and vice president in Avaap’s management consulting practice. He brings more than 20 years of experience helping business leaders identify specific ways to align strategic goals for transformation and drive outcomes that benefit institutions, agencies and organizations and their students, citizens and customers.