Today our world is developing extremely quickly mainly due to the enormous technological development. Realizing such tendencies, it is normal to expect that they will be soon commonly used in the sphere of health care.
Many people nowadays are talking about health applications. They are not well-studied yet, but their advantageous influence on healthcare is considered. Applications, such as Teladoc, are expected to improve healthcare delivery that is currently indecent because of rising costs and a shortage of providers (Uscher-Pines & Mehrotra, 2014).
In the framework of this trend, care will be provided with the help of the Internet or the telephone. A patient will receive an opportunity to contact the professional regardless of the location of both and the time. It will be extremely advantageous due to the streamlined procedure that will be not as time-consuming as face-to-face consultation and much cheaper (Hertz, 2013). Still, the risks to overlook something and make a wrong diagnosis can be increased. Now some organizations make use of health application but they are yet not generally accepted, and their benefit is not proved (Fast Company, 2013).
One more trend in the sphere of healthcare is robot usage (McNickle, 2012). They are considered to be advantageous for elderly assistance at home and healthcare organizations. The lack of medical staff affects the delivery of healthcare services adversely. Still, individuals with disabilities and stroke patients require much assistance with everyday activities.
Nursing-care robots can be used to meet the needs of patients (Hachisuka, 2016). Still, today robots are not generally accepted as health aids because of ethical challenges, expenses, and maintenance issues, etc. (Körtner, 2016). Moreover, robots are still not commonly used in other spheres as well. Professionals are yet not sure if they can be better than rehabilitation staff.
Such trends that are tightly connected with technological development affect strategic human resource management (HRM) greatly. Such alterations made HR managers pay attention not only to the professional skills and knowledge but also to people’s ability to work with new devices. They need to be sure that medical staff is able to act proactive and to forecast the issues that may occur because of the usage of robots and applications. In this way, HR managers need to provide effective training.
They should hire teams of workers who can educate medical personnel and assess their success. Professionals are also expected to consider how employees who work with new devices are recognized, as they should receive some additional benefits. HR managers should emphasize data gathering. It would be advantageous if the workers share their experiences of working with applications and robots.
In this way, possible errors can be avoided, and guidance created. Legal and ethical peculiarities should also be considered. A lot of questions entail the usage of robots and HR managers need to be sure that the patient’s rights are not violated, and their privacy ensured. All in all, HR professionals need to make sure that implemented trends provide an opportunity to reach organizational objectives and benefit both medical staff and patients.
HRM strategies that should be considered:
- Provide training for healthcare professionals for them to be able to use health applications efficiently and work with robots.
- Attract and hire high-quality people who are able to work with technologies.
- Share best practices of new technologies usage through the organization.
- Recognize the high performance of teams and individuals working with new technologies.
- Implement assessment practice every month to evaluate the effects of robots and applications and avoid errors.
References
Hachisuka, K. (2016). Rehabilitation and nursing-care robots. Nihon Rinsho, 74(4), 697-701.
Hertz, B. (2013). Joining the trend may not be as expensive or time-consuming as you think, experts say.
Fast Company. (2013). The world’s top 10 most innovative companies in health care.
Körtner., T. (2016). Ethical challenges in the use of social service robots for elderly people. Zeitschrift für Gerontologie und Geriatrie, 49(4), 303-307.
McNickle, M. (2012). 10 medical robots that could change healthcare. Web.
Uscher-Pines., L, & Mehrotra, A. (2014). Analysis of Teladoc use seems to indicate expanded access to care for patients without prior connection to a provider. Health Affairs, 33(2), 258-264.