A Pipeline of Talent for Population Health
The unceasing movement for improvements in the quality of care can be deemed as the defining characteristic of the contemporary healthcare environment. The shift of the focus toward the increase in the levels of patient satisfaction along with the speed of the recovery process and the overall quality of the services has become evident over the past few decades (Chiauzzi et al. 77-78).
Along with the tendency mentioned above, three has been a trend to address the unique needs of the target population in the context of the community of which they are apart. Therefore, the significance of the population health strategies has grown exponentially (Chiauzzi et al. 79). Consequently, the need to introduce efficient HRM approaches allowing addressing the issues associated with population health in a manner as successful as possible has appeared.
The concept of the talent pipeline, in its turn, seems to offer a range of opportunities for improving the quality of care by selecting the staff members with the highest proficiency levels. By definition, the concept of a talent pipeline implies that the time required to identify an appropriate candidate can be reduced significantly (Pickering
4). Therefore, the use of a talent pipeline strategy based on a rigid set of requirements and the available talent pools is bound to lead to significant improvements in the quality of the staff’s performance and, therefore, a rapid rise in the success in managing community needs.
When considering the benefits of the pipeline approach as far as the improvement of population health initiatives is concerned, one must mention the opportunities for increasing diversity levels. Indeed, the very design of the talent pipeline as an HRM tool implies that the applicant’s cultural specifics, diversity acceptance levels, and the ability to engage in a multicultural communication process can be identified fast. Furthermore, when adjusted to the needs of a specific community, the pipeline approach may help determine the candidates that have the propensity toward developing the relevant qualities. The diversity issue is especially important since some of the members of the community may experience linguistic difficulties when describing their health concerns and needs. The employees that are able to understand their requests and deliver the necessary services will help create positive cultural dynamics between the healthcare services and the identified community members, thus, contributing to an improvement in the relationships between the community and the healthcare experts.
Thus, an organization that is ready to provide its newly recruited staff members with the necessary training options and tools for competency improvement is bound to benefit from the use of the talent pipeline strategy as the basis for their HRM approach. The specified process aligns with the principal tenets of the Transformational Leadership Theory, which suggests that employees’ behaviors and attitudes can be altered toward greater responsibility and the application of corporate values during the decision-making process when performing the relevant tasks (Belasen and Belasen 1151). Indeed, the incorporation of the talent pipeline framework suggests that a healthcare organization should develop a system of standards that the applicants must meet and the values that they must possess. Therefore, the reconsideration of the organizational values and ethics is required so that the framework could be implemented. As a result, a significant improvement in the performance owing to the newly recruited staff and the enhanced value system can be expected.
The pipeline approach also helps build a team of healthcare experts who are ready to engage in lifelong learning and, thus, develop new competencies and skills on a regular basis (Gagnon et al. 636). Seeing that the specified effect can be defined as a positive transformational change, it can be viewed from the perspective of the Transformational Leadership Theory. As a result, the foundation for continuous improvement and the development of the necessary skills, competencies, and knowledge can be built: “It is believed that introducing a learning culture in health care organizations could improve the quality of professional practice, satisfaction, lifelong learning, and patient care, while also lowering costs” (Gagnon et al. 637).
Therefore, the application of the talent pipeline technique as the tool for promoting active knowledge acquisition and consistent professional growth aligns with the basic tenets of the Transformational Leadership Theory. Indeed, it requires that a positive example should be set to develop lifelong learning skills (i.e., the creation of an appropriate set of values and corporate responsibility standards, as well as the company’s ethics) should be introduced into the workplace environment. As a result, intellectual stimulation occurs, compelling the employees to learn more and engage in professional development. The leader figure serves as the role model that inspires the staff members to accept the suggested standards and ethical principles as the foundation for their further learning and decision making, thus, providing inspiration. Finally, the cycle is completed and starts over with the exertion of the leader’s influence and the introduction of new goals for further improvement. With the application of the identified approach, the needs of the community will be identified and met successfully, and the population health issues will be addressed accordingly.
The issues mentioned above, in fact, lead to a much larger discussion of the problems associated with population health issues. As stressed above, the ability to acquire knowledge, as well as managing information, in general, is essential for the healthcare experts engaging in the process of improving population healthcare. However, a closer look at the problems with the latter will reveal that there is a need to enhance the process of active learning among the community members as well. Indeed, due to low awareness rates among patients, the community develops a propensity toward specific diseases and disorders (Noruzy et al. 1077). Thus, the people selected with the help of the talent pipeline tool must also play the part of educators, inviting the residents of the target community to participate in a dialogue. As a result, the healthcare experts in question must assume the role of transformational leaders themselves and promote specific models for appropriate behavior and the acquisition of the relevant habits that will lead to a healthier community.
The issue of efficient communication between healthcare experts and community members is a large issue that needs to be addressed from the perspective of the pipeline of talents. Specifically, it is necessary to make sure that the framework allows for selecting the individuals that are capable of producing innovative solutions for handling the problems associated with the communication problem. Furthermore, as stressed above, the application of the pipeline talent approach will create the foundation for managing one of the primary social concerns in the modern economy, i.e., the diversity issue. The identified opportunity is linked directly to the chances of reinventing some of the approaches to administering healthcare services to the target community.
Indeed, because of the increase in diversity rates, there is a consistent need in viewing specific community issues from the perspective of a specific culture. Pipeline talent management frameworks, in their turn, create the foundation for selecting the healthcare staff members that can understand the unique needs of multicultural communities. Similarly, gender issues in healthcare can be addressed in the same way by focusing on the talent pipeline tools as the means of building trustful and positive relationships between the community and the healthcare facility (Vanderbroeck and Wasserfallen 95). As soon as the needs of the target community are identified, an appropriate talent pipeline tool can be constructed so that the selected healthcare experts could meet the required standards.
The introduction of an HRM strategy based on the pipeline of talent should be viewed as an important tool for improving the quality of the services linked to the population health. Particularly, the framework allows identifying the experts that are capable of meeting the set standards, at the same time detecting the applicants that are unlikely to pass the test and, thus, save time by dismissing them comparatively early. As a result, the selected experts will research the issues associated with community health in-depth, providing the foundation for an efficient program (e.g., a campaign for raising awareness about STD among young people in a certain community). Thus, the premises for not only successful management of the relevant community issues but also successful prevention of the existing threats will become a possibility.
Works Cited
Belasen, Alan, and Ariel A. Belasen. ” Value in the Middle: Cultivating Middle Managers in Healthcare Organizations.” Journal of Management Development, vol. 35, no. 9, 2016, pp. 1149-1162.
Chiauzzi, Emil, et al. “Patient-Centered Activity Monitoring in the Self-Management of Chronic Health Conditions.” BMC Medicine, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 77-81.
Gagnon, Marie-Pierre, et al. “A Learning Organization in the Service of Knowledge Management among Nurses: A Case Study.” International Journal of Information Management, vol. 35, no. 7, 2015, pp. 663-642.
Noruzy, Ali, et al. “Relations between Transformational Leadership, Organizational Learning, Knowledge Management, Organizational Innovation, and Organizational Performance: An Empirical Investigation of Manufacturing Firms.” International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, vol. 64, no. 5/8, 2013, pp. 1073-1085.
Pickering, Diana. The Healthcare Challenge: Implementing Talent Initiatives in a Data-Driven Industry. SIOP, 2015.
Vanderbroeck, Paul, and Jean-Blaise Wasserfallen. “Managing Gender Diversity in Healthcare: Getting It Right.” Leadership in Health Services, vol. 30, no. 1, 2017, pp. 92-100.