HR leaders describe a new reality in healthcare: Predictive modeling is beginning to replace educated guesses in hiring decisions

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Aug 21, 2018, 12:24 ET

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Healthcare reform and economic forces are causing profound changes in how human resources professionals hire, train and retain workers, a panel of experts told more than 200 healthcare HR leaders at Worldwide Business Research's Annual HR Healthcare Conference.

The panel included Natasha Milatovic, Regional Vice President of Human Performance for the Southern Region of the Adventist Health system; Dr. Christal Morris, Vice President for HR, Talent Management & HR Compliance, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; and Myra Norton, President and COO of Arena, a company that applies the tools of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve hiring and retention of staff.

The panelists agreed that the shift from fee-for-service payment toward outcomes-based reimbursement is causing HR leaders to think differently as they plan for the healthcare workforce of the next few decades. For example, proposed new regulations from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services would give Accountable Care Organizations only two years before they must share savings and losses from caring for pools of Medicare patients. And providers with poor financial performance would no longer be permitted to participate. Programs such as these are causing healthcare leaders to seek data-driven efficiencies across the enterprise, and will inevitably encompass the labor pool, healthcare's biggest economic input.

But in most cases today, the panelists said, HR leaders can only guess how labor is contributing to certain outcomes – which nurse is more likely to improve patient satisfaction scores or which care manager is more likely to get patients to follow-up appointments – based on historical experience. "We have to start making the hiring process outcomes-based versus history-based," Norton said. "Instead of looking at a set of resumes, recommendations and interviews, all based on past and current state, we need to actually look forward. We have to take both historical data and real-time data, and use the techniques of AI and predictive analytics to determine how this candidate might really perform in the job."

The panelists expressed concerns, however, that most HR teams do not have key data analytics capabilities in-house, and that partnerships with external experts will be key to future success.

About Arena

Baltimore-based Arena collects, analyzes and incorporates robust data matching healthcare organizations' culture and needs with the personalities and aptitudes of applicants. Instead of individual judgements and hypotheses, Arena develops and applies models that align most closely with the everyday realities on which a prosperous and pleasant work culture depends. Its proven solutions lower turnover at client institutions by a median of 38%, resulting in better care and higher patient satisfaction.

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SOURCE Arena