The increased usage of digital technology at the workplace is in turn impacting the utilization of human resources in every sector. Technology has proven to be an effective boon in addressing various healthcare issues as evidenced during the recent pandemic. The pandemic has also impacted the healthcare providers and professionals in the way they work, their work-life balance, and their physical, financial, social, and mental wellbeing. While many health workers have lost their lives, those alive have been affected emotionally and have started to change their careers to non-healthcare sectors. With the existing shortage in the health workforce in India, there is a need to ensure the availability of an adequate number of healthcare professionals who are highly motivated and properly trained (aka talent management). This chapter draws on factors affecting the retention of a talented health workforce, influence of the pandemic in the changing healthcare paradigm, and increased adoption of digital technologies to assist human resource managers in developing holistic talent management in the upcoming years.
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In 21st century, healthcare services globally have been revolutionized due to globalization and external environment complexities which has impacted the demand and supply of the health workforce. This is further facilitated by increased patients cross border movement for care, healthcare professionals’ migration, advancements in medical technology, mergers and acquisitions of hospitals, modernization and new customer centric strategies being adopted to deliver healthcare service. Healthcare can only function if the health workforce is accessible, available, acceptable, reliable and of quality. The recent Covid 19 pandemic has further skewed the human health workforce both in public and private domain. It has been stretched to its limits, with persistently high risk of exposure to infection and high levels and incidence of burnout, stress, anxiety, insomnia, and depression. A WHO study published in the year 2021 In the Seventy Fifth World Health Assembly (2022), it was brought to notice that the global pulse surveys conducted by WHO in August 2020, April 2021 and February 2022 confirmed that in most of the Member States, a lack of available health workers is the largest constraint to ensuring the continuity of essential health services during and after the pandemic waves, including the delivery of COVID-19 tools (vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics). With ever increasing demands of the health system due to growing pathogens, increase in non-communicable diseases, aging population, climatic events, conflicts, migration, natural disasters and economic disturbances the demands on the health workforce keeps growing day by day (Liu et al., 2017). This is compounded by the mismatch between the education and employment strategies and difficulties in deployment and availability of the health workforce in rural, remote, and underserved areas especially in low- and middle-income countries. This necessitates the presence of trained, protected, well-equipped, and motivated workforce to provide equitable access and quality to healthcare. Understanding this, countries are adopting strategies to address the strengthening the health workforce (The White House, 2022).
Indian healthcare has become one of the major sectors in terms of the revenue generation and employment opportunities. Healthcare market in India is expected to reach US$ 372 billion by 2022 (IBEF, 2022), driven by increased private and public investments, government initiatives to strengthen services, coverage and digital advancements. This sector is much diversified with opportunities in every segment which includes providers, payers, medical devices, medical tourism, digital applications, and insurance sector. India’s public healthcare expenditure in 2021-22 stood as 2.1% of its GDP as compared to 1.8% in 2020-21(Ministry of Finance, 2022). There has been a tremendous growth in the development of indigenous medical devices and products like testing kits, vaccines, ventilators, insulin pumps to such an extent that they could be exported outside the country. Medical tourism has also contributed to the growth of the sector. India was ranked 10th in the Medical Tourism Index among the top 47 destinations in 2020 – 2021 (Medical Tourism.com, 2020). A surge in the adoption of digital technology in healthcare spurred by Covid -19 has led to array of solutions like e-pharmacies, teleconsultation, e-diagnostics, videoconferencing flooding the market. These solutions are gaining increasing acceptance among the masses due to the increased availability of online services, growing internet penetration and growing adoption of e-commerce by the consumers. As of 2021, Indian healthcare sector was one of the largest employers with more than 4.7 million people working in this sector (IBEF, 2022). Considering the changes in the work environment and healthcare delivery processes, healthcare leaders across the country should look for avenues that can help to retain, build up and enhance the advantages gained by the sector in the pre-pandemic era. One such avenue it is to look towards development of a durable post covid talent management approach for strengthening the human health workforce in the country.