Technology can solve healthcare workforce shortage

The healthcare workforce shortage is expected to take off in the coming years. Healthcare is expected to be short some 135,000 workers by 2032. Technology can provide a solution. The deployment of existing technology could free up to 110,000 healthcare workers.

This reports Gupta Strategist in a report. The research firm, commissioned by entrepreneurial organisation for the technology industry FME, investigated the potential contribution of medical technology in healthcare. Over the past decade, the focus has been on the affordability of our healthcare system as the main bottleneck. However, due to our increasingly ageing population, staff shortages are playing an increasing role. According to the latest labour market projections, the shortage rises from 48,600 workers in 2022 to 135,000 by 2031. The shortage is particularly severe in elderly and hospital care. In the two industries, some 98,000 employees are expected to be short by 2031.

Existing medical technology can help, research by Gupta shows. If deployed correctly, this technology potentially releases 110,000 healthcare workers. The study looked at application from various categories:

Based on analyses, Gupta reports that medical technology in hospitals could reduce the staff shortage by 46,000 workers. This means that the staff shortage can largely be solved using existing technology. Gupta attributes half of this potential to the use of medical technology to prevent hospital care. The remaining potential comes from the fact that technology can ease the use of staff. As a result, fewer people are needed to deliver the same amount of care.

The potential is also great in elderly care, Gupta reports. Existing medical technology can reduce staff shortages in elderly care by 64,500 workers. This could solve about two-thirds of the expected staff shortage in elderly care by 2031. The potential here lies mainly in easing the use of staff. The same staff can thus care for more clients.

While the report shows the potential of technology to be great, the report simultaneously points to poor adoption. Among other things, there was a lack of sense of urgency. For instance, hiring staff at higher costs is often easier for management and board than changing healthcare processes in such a way that medical technology is used optimally. The relative factor price of labour is lower than that of capital, leading organisations to opt for labour. Also, demand from patients for medical technology is still limited.

Also, knowledge about healthcare technology is limited at all levels. From boardroom to consulting room and from Lower House to living room, people know too little about the technology possibilities, their impact and conditions for successful implementation in care processes. The report calls this lack of knowledge problematic, as it means there is no alternative perspective for action. As a result, everything stays the same. Technology also has no structural place in training curricula. Many healthcare organisations also want to test proven technology first instead of implementing it immediately. In addition, there is fear and distrust of technology among staff.

Implementing medical technology requires investments. These are sometimes difficult to justify from an organisational perspective, Gupta reports in the report. For instance, innovation sometimes causes revenues to be lost while investments are needed. An example is telemonitoring or the shift from inpatient care to day care. Here, an equal patient volume leads to lower revenue as the hospital shifts production to cheaper DOTs.

Gupta also points to the 'partitions' in funding. As an example, the research firm cites a situation where costs and benefits of an innovation do not fall in the same place. Think of better support for the elderly in the neighbourhood, which can postpone or prevent intramural elderly care. The investments required for this fall within the Wmo and Zvw, while the benefits occur in the Wlz. This makes it financially uninteresting for home care organisations, health insurers and municipalities to invest in preventing people from entering the Wlz.

In addition, investment scope at healthcare organisations is limited. At the same time, competition makes health insurers reluctant to invest in medical technology.

Healthcare supply is also sometimes too fragmented to fully exploit the potential of medical technology. Scale is relatively small, making it difficult to realise a positive business case. Large patient volumes are often needed to fully exploit innovative infrastructure. Among other things, this makes the cost per patient manageable.

Regional cooperation can be a way to create scale together so that solutions can be properly implemented. However, mutual competition hinders healthcare organisations from creating scale together. As an example, Gupta cites district nursing, where in recent years healthcare organisations have had a limited focus on sharing knowledge when scaling up innovations with a view to maintaining their own market share.

Process and organisational changes also require people to drive, guide and challenge these changes. These people are in short supply within healthcare organisations. This problem is particularly prevalent in elderly care.

All stakeholders can contribute to breaking the deadlock, according to the report. "An integrated view of staff deployment and technology deployment is desirable. It is not one or the other. Only when parties feel the urgency will they do more to promote technology deployment," Gupta writes in the FME report.

"We find that each of the stakeholders has options to promote the use of existing technology. Healthcare organisations, health insurers and care offices, citizens, government and the technology industry all have tools to actively contribute to the implementation of technology in healthcare within the current system. If they act together and in a like-minded way, much is possible."

The research report is available here.

Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source photo: Pixabay / sasint