The next blog in our ‘Seizing the Opportunity’ blog series unpacks one of the key discussion points at this year’s Healthcare Business International 2022 (June 20-22). We’ll be uncovering the question; ‘How can we better support healthcare workers to cope with the pace of tech adoption?’.

It is not just that there are huge shortages of health care workers. Rather it is that they face an existential crisis wedged between higher patient expectations and new technology which transforms their role.

In some countries the workforce is actually shrinking. There are for instance fewer family doctors in the UK now than in 2015. And often technology and AI contribute to the problem according to recent research.

Yes, telehealth appointments have boomed, quite naturally, over the past two years and have proved a resounding success. It’s obviously the future, but we just weren’t quite ready for this future yet. It’s like jumping from using a Nokia 3310 to an iPhone 13 overnight, without the learning that comes through different iterations.

Meeting patient expectations with a sometimes shrinking workforce whilst mastering new ways of working has left many questioning if this work is for them anymore. And then there was Covid.

Research by UnitedHealth Group suggested that in the U.S. the majority of healthcare providers are frustrated with managing patient expectations through telehealth. That’s despite the clear positives for patients and providers alike of convenience, better scheduling, increased touch-points and improved reporting. Doctors remain worried about the quality of care that they can provide, the increase in patient expectations and having to learn yet another new technology.

A recent report from Elsevier and Ipsos asked 3,000 doctors in 111 countries what they thought the ‘clinician of the future’ would look like. And it highlighted some pretty big red flags for technology influencing doctor burnout.

69% reported being overwhelmed with the current volume of data. That same percentage said that the increase in digital health technologies will present a more challenging burden in the future and 83% felt that training needs to be overhauled to keep pace with technological advancements.

The onus is on leaders and technology providers to help doctors on this journey, to educate them not only on how to use tech but also how to get the most out of it. It’s also important to build in the right systems and processes so as to present data intuitively.

This is part of a really big conversation, a conversation we will have in pretty much every session at HBI 2022 in June. Afterall, digital transformation and its impact on the workforce touches everything in healthcare services from simple tech to help with efficiency to the complexities of AI diagnosis and surgical automation. We will ask what groups and tech companies are doing to support healthcare staff on their digital transformation journeys.

For example, hear from Ran Balicer at Clalit the big Israeli insurer and Joe Stringer at Octopus Ventures about what is really working in digital transformation. You will also hear from Dimitris Moulavasilis, CEO of dialysis group Diaverum on how it is using AI to predict thrombosis in dialysis patients. Or from Oskari Eskola on how Finnish health care group Mehilainen developed a digital clinic which it’s now offering to others as a SaaS platform. Daan Dohmen, the CEO of Luscii will share how it helped an Amsterdam hospital monitor 200,000 Covid patients remotely with just 8 doctors and how doctors are using that platform to develop new patient care pathways. We will find out from Bjorn von Siemens, CEO of CareSyntax on how it is using big data sets to remotely assist surgeons in real time and from Nadine Hachach-Haram, CEO of Proximie on how it’s utilising mixed-reality to help surgeons practice and collaborate.

What makes HBI 2022 unusual is that our CEO speakers really address the underlying workforce issues in tech adoption. Check out the full agenda to explore the key topics and our expert speaker line-up.