4 Strategies Providers Are Using to Strengthen the Healthcare Workforce
During Reuters’ Total Health conference in Chicago, four healthcare leaders shared the strategies they believe will help fortify the workforce for the future.
During Reuters’ Total Health conference in Chicago, four healthcare leaders shared the strategies they believe will help fortify the workforce for the future.
At MedCity News’ Tête-à-tête Health event, executives from Sutter Health and Tampa General Hospital discussed how they are deploying AI, as well as how they are keeping governance and the human touch at the forefront.
Tens of thousands of Kaiser Permanente workers in California and Hawaii have gone on strike, demanding safer staffing levels and higher pay. The dispute underscores growing tensions in healthcare labor as unions raise concerns about patient safety, ongoing burnout and ever-increasing pay for executives.
Leading in healthcare when the odds are stacked against you is not about eliminating the challenges. It is about meeting them without losing sight of the reason we chose this profession in the first place.
Duke University Health System is deploying a mix of homegrown and purchased AI tools to ease clinicians’ administrative burden and improve patient care. Chief Nurse Executive Terry McDonnell highlighted that while AI can’t replace nurses’ judgment, it can help free up their time for what matters most.
By supporting managers, healthcare organizations can make the workplace better for nurses. That could not only improve retention but build a pipeline of nurse managers.
Richard Fu details the company's approach to nutrition therapy and strategy for patients using GLP-1s.
The American Heart Association’s venture arm invested in Auxira Health, a startup that embeds virtual clinical teams into cardiology practices to reduce physician burnout and expand patient access. By handling routine tasks like follow-up visits and medication refills, Auxira gives cardiologists the opportunity to focus on complex care without adding full-time staff.
Clinicians drop off early in the pipeline because they receive little context and minimal support. The only way to solve this problem is to create a system that drives long-term retention and workforce stability by supporting clinician well-being.
Over the past couple of years, ambient scribes have earned widespread adoption among health systems. While there's excitement around other categories like AI agents, no other AI use case has achieved ambient scribes’ level of traction, noted Daniel Yang, Kaiser Permanente’s vice president of AI and emerging technologies.
Ardent Health is deploying virtual nurse technology to ease workflow burdens on bedside nurses by offloading routine tasks — and its nurse turnover rate has dropped from 15.5% to 9.5%. The health system is also using virtual specialty consults to enhance care in rural hospitals, cutting unnecessary transfers by 85% and enabling more patients to receive quality care close to home.
Sheila Bond, MD, talked about the latest trends regarding integration of AI in healthcare.
The demands of the industry are constant, but when organizations prioritize the physical, emotional, and professional well-being of their caregivers, they build the foundation for long-term workforce stability.
Riverside Health is reporting an increase in revenue and net margins as a result of adopting Abridge’s ambient AI technology. The tool listens to doctor-patient interactions and generates clinical notes — which not only alleviates physicians’ burnout, but also improves their documentation accuracy. The Virginia-based health system saw a 14% increase in HCC diagnoses documented per encounter.
AI-powered scribes are proving their ability to dramatically reduce clinician burnout, but their financial impact is unclear, according to research from the Peterson Health Technology Institute.
Reversing this trend requires connecting disparate systems to enhance interoperability and communication and achieve more efficient, cohesive workflows. Implementing the infrastructure to streamline collaboration and reduce administrative burden will improve both staff well-being and patient outcomes.
By reducing the time spent on administrative tasks, AI scribes allow physicians to focus more on what truly matters — patient care. As the technology continues to evolve and improve, its adoption will likely become more widespread, further enhancing its benefits.