June was a good month for healthcare hiring, but the staffing crisis can only be solved by tech, VBC –

The U.S. economy added 372,000 jobs last month, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Healthcare employment rose by 57,000 in June — including 28,000 new hires in ambulatory health care services, 21,000 in hospitals, and 8,000 in nursing and residential care facilities. 

This marks five months of employment increases for hospitals and senior care. Though this may seem like good news, healthcare employment levels are still significantly below what they need to be, according to Matt Wolf, national healthcare business valuation director at consultancy firm RSM US. 

This is especially true for the nursing care facility workforce. Employment in this category is still 12% lower than it was pre-pandemic — a period in which nursing care facilities were already critically understaffed, Wolf pointed out. Hospitals might be in a “better” spot than nursing care, but that is mainly because of supplemental contract labor, the use of which is too expensive to be sustainable.

Many senior care workers are fleeing to other industries. Providing this care can be very labor-intensive, and those leaving this profession may also be attracted by other industries that have raised wages, such as fast food and retail. Wolf said senior care workers often view work in these other industries as much easier for the same amount of income.

With the rate things are going, very few providers will be able hire themselves out of this employment dearth, Wolf said . Another expert, Tom Andriola, vice chancellor of IT and data at UCI Health, agreed. In fact, he said healthcare employment levels are actually on track to get worse.

“If you look at the future staffing situation in healthcare, you can see that demand will continue to grow with an aging population and the increased incidence of chronic disease, as well as an aging workforce that will retire at a faster pace than new professionals coming into the industry,” Andriola said. “You can even now consider a fourth impact — a rising number of health complications due to climate impacts and pandemic viruses.”

Without changes to fee-for-service reimbursement rates, which are needed but unlikely, providers do not have many opportunities to increase their prices to keep up with the costs of labor shortages. Because of this, leveraging more technology is “the only real sustainable solution” to healthcare’s workforce crisis, Wolf said. He and Andriola believe remote patient monitoring (RPM) could potentially play an important role in alleviating healthcare’s staffing crisis.

“RPM can provide the safety, security and support that patients need, and help them remain at home, while using a fraction of the amount of labor,” Wolf said. “And while still providing the type of care that they need to live long and fulfilling lives.”

He pointed out that for providers to deploy RPM, they need coverage and reimbursement, which would require a “real paradigm shift” from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In order to effectively roll out this technology, hospitals will have to embrace capitated and risk-sharing reimbursement models.

Providers do not have to worry about billing for interim visits when using value-based care models, as their chief concern is ensuring their patients have access to the care they need to remain healthy, according to Chris Coburn, Mass General Brigham’s chief innovation officer.

“Getting RPM right is at the core of successfully delivering value based care,” he said. “That said, remote patient care is not a single technology or set of technologies — it is an approach to care that combines technologies with compassion in a way that provides the same excellence as on-site care.”

RPM is not the only technology that providers should invest in to innovate out of the staffing crisis, Andriola pointed out. For example, robotic process automation can handle repetitive administrative tasks, alleviating burnout and making healthcare jobs less stressful. He also brought up the example of digital companions that can be designed to handle patients’ routine preparations and follow-up interactions. 

“In the end technologies are just tools, and the real benefit comes from focusing up front on process and workflow redesign to eliminate waste or create a force-multiplier effect with a strong attention to the organizational and people change management that come along with it,” he said.

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