Healthcare Investment Opportunities Grow in ‘Soft Skills’
The ACA, new technologies and team-based care are pushing the healthcare investment opportunities in soft skill sets.
- There are a number of factors that are impacting the way healthcare organization operate and who they choose to invest time and money into. Having employees with the right skill set can separate a successful organization from a struggling one. It is not just import to have skilled physicians, but an entire team of knowledgeable professionals.
Recently, the College for America at Southern New Hampshire University released a new report that focused on the demand for nonclinical and frontline healthcare roles and the skills that are required to be successful within them.
In an interview with RevCycleIntelligence.com, Melissa Goldberg, the Senior Workforce Strategist at College for America spoke about the study, why it was conducted and what the healthcare industry should focus on when it come to important employee skills. With more than 20 years experience, she has seen how the job market has evolved and how regulations like the Affordable Care Act (ACA) can impact it.
The report was conducted to see what the effect of the federal healthcare exchange has been on healthcare job trends. The current demand for healthcare frontline and nonclinical workers is high and the future projects will continue that trend as baby boomers retire, new technologies become more important and the ACA redefines the nature of the patient care team.
The study found that there will be 21,965,600 workers in the healthcare industry by 2022 and will be the largest segment of the United States economy. The nonclinical, community and social service and support positions comprise 42 percent of the entire healthcare workforce. The fasting growing roles in this area are patient representative, community health worker, medical records technician, office supervisor, medical office specialist and medical assistant.
The other big takeaway from the report is the growing shift toward team-based patient care. Frontline and nonclinical workers are expected to operate as a part of a high-functioning team by expertly communicating with patients, families and peers.
According to Goldberg, one of the most surprising findings from the report is the fact that while healthcare roles may seem to be quite different on the surface, there is actually a number of specific skills that they all share.
“At first glance, a medical assistant and a medical office specialist have very different roles to play, yet both are patient-facing roles and both need to communicate with their colleagues across the chain of command,” Goldberg said. “Strong communications skills, knowledge of the language of healthcare, and the ability to function in a team environment are required for both positions. We found similar commonalities across all of the positions we profiled.”
The top skills for frontline and nonclinical workers are known as “soft skills” – collaboration, communication, critical thinking, problem solving, poise under pressure, etc. Also on the list is basic technical knowledge including comfort with computers and electronic health records, which is something not previously required but is now critical with the ACA and the healthcare exchange. Other factors like accountable care organizations are also impacting the demand for these skills.
“As for value-based payments (and accountable care organizations), the patient navigator and community coordinators may be critical to physicians who expect to receive full reimbursement,” Goldberg said. “They are key contributors to the patient-centered medical home, and must have the aforementioned soft skills to excel at their jobs.”
This is the second year that the report has been conducted and Goldberg said that the numbers and projects remain consistent with the previous report. The only major difference is a slight decline in the growth of office specialist and medical assistance jobs and the creation and growth of the patient navigator or representative role, which is fairly new and has evolved over the last few years.
The challenge of finding skills
Knowing the skills that you need and acquiring them are different entities. The evolving healthcare landscape is increasing the demand for these skills and making it harder to acquire them.
“We found that people are increasingly expecting personalized services; data and information in real time; and more choices because of the proliferation of social and mobile technology,” Goldberg said. “Patients are able to shop around and be pickier about their healthcare choices, and medical outcomes are not the only competitive differentiator anymore—a satisfactory patient experience is nearly as important.”
However, Goldberg said that it can be a challenge to find and hire employees with these skills. Soft and problem solving skills are not part of the certification or training for frontline and nonclinical workers. Having good bedside manner doesn’t matter if you are uncomfortable using a computer or electronic health records. Those that are not in the industry yet, can use a competency-based degree program to supplement technical, vocational and institutional skills with critical business and soft skills.
“The movement to patient-centered medical homes and team-based care has created a new way for these staffers to work—communicating directly with doctors, and having more face-time with patients,” Goldberg said. “So frontline workers who are already in the workforce need to pick up these skills elsewhere.”
Nothing having these skills is obviously a detriment to the employee, but it can also impact the hospital. For healthcare employers, the result could lower patient satisfaction scores, which over time, could lead to patients deciding to go elsewhere. This is particularly a threat in cities or other areas where medical care facilities are densely populated.
Demand to pick up
In the years to come, greater face time with patients, the shift to team-based care and the need for technology skills is going to become increasingly important. The concept of patient-centered care and the competition across healthcare providers is raising the importance of a kind of customer service.
“We are seeing those customer care types of skills being infused throughout the healthcare system, and we predict will become part and parcel of these frontline job descriptions moving forward,” Goldberg said.
