Analysis of a Pertinent Healthcare Issue: Upskilling ✓ Solved

The healthcare system is a dynamic field that keeps on drastically evolving regarding new knowledge acquired from research. It is usually affected by many national healthcare stressors or issues, which require addressing, though some of them need urgent intervention. One of the most pertinent healthcare issues or stressors that affect and impact many healthcare institutions in the United States is upskilling of healthcare professionals.

This paper will focus on nurses who work in healthcare organizations. Upskilling refers to retraining employees to acquire new and fresh skills to practice with ease in their specific fields. The recent developments, especially technological changes in and outside healthcare systems, have significantly necessitated workers like nurses to acquire upgraded skills. Upskilling is regarded as one of the most critical healthcare issues. Many healthcare workforces worldwide are grappling with the threat of redundancy by technologies like artificial intelligence when they do not use upskilling (Ross, 2019).

The most affected nurses are those who never accessed technology in the course of delivering their nursing care.

Impact of Upskilling in Healthcare

Since the inception of upskilling in my healthcare organization, it has had an enormous impact on nursing practice. This has been a result of drastically emerging technologies in healthcare, which have become mandatory in nursing care, therapeutics, and diagnostics. Therefore, nurses have found themselves short of needed skills in delivering efficient and quality patient care in most cases. However, many healthcare organizations have the obligation of investing in retraining and upgrading nurses' skills to keep up to date with new technological changes in healthcare.

For instance, policymakers within my organization have created a training fund meant to train nurses and other healthcare practitioners to use the newly introduced electronic healthcare records (Teague, 2019). Upskilling in healthcare is regarded as new artificial intelligence-assisted telehealth interventions.

Areas of Concern in Healthcare

Many healthcare organizations need to invest in their employees' abilities to remain competitive in the healthcare sector immensely. Failure to do so will render them ineffective in competing in the ever-dynamic healthcare marketplace across the world. Artificial intelligence, for instance, is becoming prominent in healthcare today.

Thus, the ever-growing sophistication of new technologies in healthcare is becoming the driving force behind the need to upskill healthcare workers. The use of digital therapeutics has become an area of concern, in which healthcare technologies are replacing traditional disease treatment and management (Siwicki, 2019). Since clinical validations of digital therapeutics products and connection to medical devices have already been initiated by the FDA, there is a need for upskilling nurses by healthcare organizations.

Articles on Upskilling Issues in Healthcare

According to Rimmer (2018), for doctors and nurses to effectively and successfully use emerging healthcare technologies, they must undergo retraining to upskill. This article focuses on doctors and nurses since they both face similar challenges. It states that urgent training is needed by nurses and doctors in areas like genomics, digital literacy, and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms. It also says that training should be a must for all healthcare practitioners to cope with new healthcare technologies. Hence, doctors and nurses should receive similar treatment when it comes to training for upskilling.

On the other side, Fralic (2013) states that the healthcare system in the United States is drastically undergoing radical and monumental changes. Therefore, it is common knowledge changes always require re-strategizing and re-organizing to deliver efficient and quality healthcare services. Hence, upskilling is significant in keeping up with new healthcare technologies. In many organizations within the healthcare system, this exact situation has become portended; however, they have adopted a retraining approach to upskilling doctors, nurses, and other healthcare practitioners to cope with new healthcare technologies and continue offering adequate quality safe patient care.

Strategies to Address the Healthcare Issue

Upskilling is inevitable in healthcare organizations. Therefore, it is essential to create effective strategies which will help address the impact of these issues in the organization. However, healthcare organizations can employ various techniques; they need to gradually introduce the emerging technologies to allow enough time for training and adaptation by the healthcare practitioners.

Organizations need to make upskilling one of their policies and part of their organizational goals and objectives. The organizations should also budget for upskilling if they need to become successful in areas of technology within their institutions. Moreover, at no point should upskilling be considered an afterthought in any organization (Teague, 2019; Ross, 2019). These strategies have an immense impact on the healthcare organization positively since they are mainly geared towards providing the organization with a very competitive advantage over other healthcare organizations. Negatively, these strategies are time-consuming in terms of training, and they require a lot of resources, which means the organization will invest a lot of help.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the healthcare landscape continues to evolve rapidly, influencing how healthcare professionals, especially nurses, function in their roles. Upskilling is critical to ensuring that nurses remain effective and adept in the face of advancing technology and changing healthcare needs. The commitment of healthcare organizations to invest in upskilling not only aids in the professional development of nurses but ultimately improves patient care outcomes. By adopting coherent strategies and cultivating an environment where continuous learning is prioritized, the healthcare sector can navigate the challenges posed by technological advancements and better serve the needs of the community.

References

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  • Ross, J.R. (2019). Upskilling could be an ideal treatment for healthcare’s employment woes.

  • Siwicki, B. (2019). Here are 6 major issues facing healthcare in 2019, according to PwC. Healthcare ITNews.

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