Reskilling the Workforce for Technological Advancement: Prospects and Implications for Health Information Management Professionals

Introduction

It is an uncontestable fact that technological advancement offers ample opportunities and changes in businesses and services in all sectors of the economy, of which health information management professionals (HIMPs) are no exception. More so, reskilling as a health information management professional is meant to showcase the opportunities to retain their job in the face of technological advancements such as electronic medical records and telemedicine, among others, in the health sector of the economy. But the concern that comes to mind is: are HIMPs fitting into the contemporary times of technological innovations so as to situate their significance within the health sector, especially in a developing country like Nigeria, so as to guide against technological job obliteration (Mamela, Sukdeo, & Mukwakungu, 2020).With the future threat of jobs becoming increasingly uncertain and scarce, therefore, it is high time people have the right skillset through relevant and timely reskilling so that they can be more resilient, agile, and competent to cope with not only future challenges but also unexpected disruptions such as the pandemic (Schwartz, 2020). The skills of employees working for the institutions required reskilling to make them competent in tune with the changing realities. This can be attributed to newer technologies such as digitization, artificial intelligence, block chain technologies, data analytics, and automation redefining the service delivery life cycle (Bakare, 2023). But these new technological advances will also create 130 million new job roles that would allow people to work with machines and algorithms in parallel to meet these demographic and economic changes.

According to the 2018 Future of Jobs Report, it is opined that about 75 million jobs are expected to be displaced by 2022 in 20 major economies (Bughin et al., 2018). Whereas the McKinsey Global Institute report estimates this figure as more than 375 million workers who need to change their skill sets by the year 2030 (Chakma & Chaijinda, 2020). It is an undeniable fact that chatbot technology is handy for users and librarians' job performance in their search queries, which is relevant for library resources and reference assistance (Bakare, 2023). However, there is a need for a change in mindset and technological reorientation, especially in a developing country like Nigeria. This would happen because of newer technologies such as digitization (Van Veldhoven & Vanthienen, 2022). In this modern era, new sets of skills are required for organizational workforces to have in order to be competent in performing their various work tasks (Mamela et al., 2020). In essence, HIMPs who are saddled with the responsibilities of providing up-to-date records of hospital patients without any inhibition must know that the medical domain is passing through rapid changes in the era of globalization (Mukkerla, 2020). For this reason, records management demands are also changing in accordance with present realities.

The continuous, fast-growing improvements in the field of AI have placed many jobs at risk of being substituted by robots and intelligent automation technological advancements (Petropoulos, 2017). Within this technological context, HIMPs are saddled with the professional responsibilities to provide patients with digital records within split seconds at the click of a button; therefore, there is a need to be dynamic to cope with the technological changes that are occurring around them; otherwise, the purpose for which the Health Information Management Profession was created becomes insignificant and flawed (Mukkerla, 2020). Therefore, skilling, upskilling, and reskilling could be the crucial differentiators between entities that are going to thrive and those that will flop in contemporary times and in the future (Muchiri, 2022). For health information management professionals to remain in high demand, effective, efficient, and relevant in the present dispensation of digitalization and technological advancement, reskilling is non-negotiable to step up their game as a pivotal player within the health sector. Therefore, it can be inferred that there are prospects and implications of reskilling Health Information Management Professionals (HIMPs) brought about by technological innovation, which is a subject of discourse in this chapter, knowing fully well that technological job obliteration is related to the disappearance of jobs when technological innovation is not embraced (Mamela, Sukdeo et al. 2020).