Health care roles are changing. What are the keys to attracting the talent that can adapt to these roles? How can health care organizations think strategically about workforce planning, talent and leadership development?

An issue that’s magnified right now in the health care field is that of attracting the right kind of talent, especially as work is changing and as technology creates the need for different mindsets around how jobs get done and who we need in health care organizations.

In this labor market finding talent is a challenge; in health care it is even tougher because licensing and skill issues factor in. So, health care needs the right kind of talent pipeline, the right recruitment system, and selection processes that operate super efficiently. At the same time every hiring manager expects concierge service. And, that scale issue, while providing a concierge level of service out of the HR organization, is the next frontier for all HR functions.

The leading health systems have their ducks in a row when it comes to thinking strategically about workforce planning, talent, and leadership and management development – increasingly important areas. But such cases are fewer and further between than one would hope or like to see. I think the vast majority of health care systems and organizations – academic medical centers being one key piece of that – struggle to plan and translate their business strategy into workforce and talent planning.

Additionally, HR leadership struggles with long-range planning where they can say, “In three to five years, we know our nursing vacancy rate is not going to be 20%. It has the risk, if we don’t do something, of being even twice that given the reduced number of seats in nursing programs, the stronger and stronger requirements for success in nursing programs, and  the need for much more creativity to source talent and prepare for those future needs.”

The other challenge is the role of technology in medicine and how that is almost leapfrogging a health system’s ability to keep up with finding the right kind of people.  In order for health systems to have the right kind of talent in place for the future, there needs to be much closer articulation between what’s going on in terms of innovation around medical technology and how that’s going to impact specific specialties, specific fields, and specific jobs.

Transcript edited for clarity.