How healthcare organizations can build resilience and agility
Explore the factors that make an organization in the healthcare sector resilient and agile.
Explore the factors that make an organization in the healthcare sector resilient and agile.
Spurred by several years of economic and political uncertainty, a common theme has arisen in the minds of executives across the globe today — the question of how to build business resilience and agility. Hyland began to answer this question through our 2023 report, “Unlocking Business Resilience and Agility.” Within it, we sought to learn about the state of resilience and agility in business today: what factors define it, how companies are cultivating it and where there is room for improvement.
The healthcare industry has been hit hard with challenges over the past few years, between COVID-19, global inflation and widespread staffing shortages. Individual organizations have had to strategize to find ways to remain agile when adapting to change and to remain resilient in the face of crisis.
With an overall index of 78 of 100, the healthcare industry mirrors the global industry average of employees’ and executives’ confidence in their organization’s capacity to remain resilient and agile.
Now let's break down that average. More than half of our survey respondents were very confident in their organization’s resilience and agility, with 53% of employees and executives considering their organizations to be “strong” or “very strong” in resilience and agility. On the other end, 29% of respondents — nearly a third — rated their organizations as “weak” or “very weak.”
To understand the divide, we analyzed the attributes of highly confident organizations. What factors make an organization in the healthcare sector resilient and agile?
We found 10 attributes to be the most impactful when building resilience and agility in the healthcare sector:
However, not all healthcare companies are fully leveraging these attributes. Of these resilience and agility drivers, 6 of 10 are well-leveraged: Leadership’s vision is followed, comprehensive employee training is a priority, continuous improvement is present, employees have sufficient autonomy, effective change management processes are followed and technology solutions promote information access.
But some of the most important factors are underleveraged. For instance, the most impactful attribute, having a dedicated innovation unit, is something many healthcare organizations have not yet invested in. Documented risk tolerance, service analytics and voice-of-employee process tools are also underleveraged drivers.
Healthcare’s most underleveraged attributes may be the most helpful in addressing some of today’s biggest challenges. For instance, current widespread staffing shortages, especially in the field of nursing, are likely to be continuing issues for the industry, with the World Healthcare Organization predicting a global shortfall of 15 million healthcare workers by 2030. Burnout is thought to be a leading cause of this shortage.
Healthcare organizations may look to invest in voice-of-employee process tools to gather information about how their employees perceive their organization and adjust processes and policies according to employee needs. Investing in tools like this could help organizations mitigate staff burnout, increase employee satisfaction and boost retention.
While healthcare may be an innovative field in general — constantly discovering new treatments and evolving practices based on emerging science — we found that not many healthcare organizations have specific units dedicated to innovation. There’s a lot of technological innovation to sift through, and dedicated innovation units help organizations stay adaptable to change.
With technology evolving at breakneck speed, patients and potential employees will be looking to organizations on the cutting edge of innovation. Companies should be ready to pivot and adapt as these technologies continue to evolve. Embracing innovation is critical not only to the resilience of individual healthcare organizations but to the communities they serve.
By addressing these barriers, healthcare organizations can enhance their resilience and agility. Valuing people, leveraging technology strategically, fostering alignment and setting forward-thinking goals are crucial steps toward thriving in a changing healthcare landscape.
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