3 Tech-Enabled Approaches to the Talent Crisis in Healthcare

Industry experts and Workday customers across finance, human resources, information technology, and supply chain management share their most pressing talent challenges and solutions for retaining a strong workforce in the healthcare industry.

It’s no secret that the healthcare industry is in the midst of a widespread, record-setting talent crisis. An aging U.S. population and rising healthcare utilization are straining an industry grappling with high attrition stemming from heavy workloads, increased administrative burdens, and overall burnout.

Short-term solutions, such as relying on contingent nurses, may solve an immediate staffing shortfall but can carry a high cost. “We can’t keep doing what we’re doing; it’s not sustainable,” says Vince Vickers, principal and national healthcare consulting leader at KPMG.

What is sustainable—and gaining serious ground among healthcare leaders—are new and emerging technologies that enable organizations to reimagine everything from workforce planning and talent development to where and how work happens. In fact, healthcare executives are more likely than those in other industries to be proactive in their digital strategy, the 2022 KPMG U.S. Technology Survey found. They’re also more likely to invest in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). And, even though most healthcare organizations spent less than 10% of their budget on technology, they’re more likely to have generated a positive return on investment from tech expenditures.

“Everybody wants to talk about people: How to retain and develop, how to prevent burnout, reimagining how and where people do their work,” says Sarah Hickman-Auger, industry director of healthcare solution marketing at Workday. The unwavering, industrywide focus is necessary because, as Hickman-Auger continues, “in healthcare, your people are your most valuable resource.”

Workload alone isn’t to blame, Vickers notes. An overload of bureaucratic tasks can be a top contributor to burnout. In this case, technology can be a potent salve, as automation and a unified platform free workers from many of the tedious, repetitive tasks—from aggregating report data to filling out expense reports—that they find draining.