DHIS 2022 White Paper

Summit Questions and Discussion

The pre-summit survey questions were used to contextualize and provide a framework for the small-group discussions during the summit. At the summit, KLAS posed the following discussion questions to the groups (each composed of an even mix of attendee types):

• 1. What short-term mitigation strategies have been most successful for addressing staffing challenges?
• 2. In terms of the long-term needs of healthcare staffing and workforce management, what is or should be technology’s role in the retention of healthcare talent?
• 3. What is the next big step to ensure a stable healthcare workforce long term?

The following section highlights discussion themes and insights from these questions.

Small-Group Discussion Insights

1. What short-term mitigation strategies have been most successful for addressing staffing challenges?

• Attendees noted that higher compensation has plugged staffing gaps in the short term but is unsustainable in the long term.
• Some healthcare organizations have taken the innovative approach of creating internal float pools that allow the organizations to fully staff shifts across their enterprise while giving staff opportunities for variety and flexibility.
• Attendees reflected on the alignment of processes and workflow to keep people working at the top of their licensure as much as possible.

“We are seeing a push toward automation to collect bills digitally in order to reduce stress on call centers. The more you can automate processes, the more time you give back to staff by eliminating manual tasks.” —Summit attendee

2. In terms of the long-term needs of healthcare staffing and workforce management, what is or should be technology’s role in the retention of healthcare talent? 

• Above all, attendees saw automation as an important long-term goal for healthcare in general and, specifically, to allow providers to work at their top of their licensure. However, many shared worries of new technology creating more problems. To address this, attendees stressed the importance of technology working holistically with workflows and of developing solutions with clinician input.

“Satisfaction may not surround technology problems. We can’t get nurses to use new workflows. There is a documentation burden, but the nurses don’t want to be told how to do their jobs. Technology isn’t the solution; reinventing the workflows is the solution. Then you can fit the technology to the new workflow. Documentation workflow needs to be highlighted, measured, and chipped away at.”  —Summit attendee

“The voice of the clinician can get lost in the noise of big IT systems—particularly EMRs. Developers need to make things easier and listen to the clinicians who use the systems.”  —Summit attendee

• Other ideas to extend the healthcare workforce included bringing virtual care into the mainstream and exploring the potential of physicians and nurses working from home.

3. What is the next big step to ensure a stable healthcare workforce long term?

• Attendees noted that administrative overhead is by far the largest pain point regarding the healthcare workforce. The current back-end financial processes create an extreme burden on staffing and administration. A more streamlined claims process and greater trust between providers and payers will be necessary for the long-term health of the healthcare workforce.

“There are many people in hospitals and payer organizations whose sole job is to call and fax each other about claim statuses. Some of those administrative tasks are being eliminated by automation, but that is taking time and trust.” —Summit attendee

• The burden of the technology stack was frequently cited as a major pain point that bars the way to a better long-term healthcare workforce. Even with all of the advantages and improvements in care that technology offers, the growing complexity of the technology stack has led to workforce misalignments and an additional burden on the system in terms of cost and FTE/hourly maintenance. Attendees stressed the importance of new and existing solutions that integrate into the technology stack.

“The ROI needs to make sense. A piece of technology may reduce FTEs, but the cost might not justify the savings. A lot of technology has great potential but is not scalable or cost-effective. Technologies need to be scalable and financially justifiable.”  —Summit attendee

Conclusions

On the heels of the global pandemic, DHIS 2022 convened during a time of unprecedented staffing shortages, making it more important than ever to reflect on the current state of healthcare and how to solve tomorrow’s problems. While short-term solutions for staffing shortages exist, long-term sustainability remains a major challenge. Technology automation has a critical role to play but must integrate well into already-existing workflows to be effective; new technology cannot afford to create new problems for a workforce that is rapidly approaching burnout. (For more information on provider burnout and the EHR experience, see this recent report from KLAS’ Arch Collaborative.) Improved trust and partnership between payers and provider organizations are keys to reducing the administrative overhead that is currently threatening the long-term stability of the healthcare workforce. KLAS would like to thank the thought leaders who attended DHIS 2022 and shared their insights with each other and the rest of the industry.

Attendees