1 in 5 medical employees in the US have quit their jobs since the beginning of the pandemic. Due to burnout and stress, mostly. Meanwhile, 86% of the healthcare organizations that adopted a hybrid work model reported that their employees got happier since the transition.
In addition to the increase in revenue, improved productivity, and the scalability of their medical services.
“How did they manage to pull off a hybrid work arrangement without losing the genuine human connection that’s critical to healthcare interactions?” you must be asking yourself.
This is exactly what we tried to find out ourselves:
You’ll get the answers to these 2 main questions in today’s post.
Then, you can dive deeper into data by reading our report on The State of Hybrid Work in Healthcare, too.
Without further ado, here’s what we discovered…
TLDR:
Physician burnout is the new epidemic we’re facing these days.
With symptoms like mean emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and general dissatisfaction with work-life integration (WLI).
And although burnout manifests itself in individuals, it stems from the system itself. From the workplace and the existing work model itself.
Which is predominantly on-site and in-person.
And although it’s the individuals that present the symptoms, it’s the healthcare system itself and the healthcare organizations that… “pay the bill”.
Because the situation is close to dramatic:
The solution to this crisis?
We need to adapt and rethink our healthcare systems and our traditional ways of working in this industry. And to put the healthcare employee experience and well-being at its very center.
To reimagine a workplace and work model for our care teams and clinicians that would allow them to:
In short, we need to (re)consider a shift toward hybrid forms of work in the healthcare industry.
Flexibility….
74.4% of surveyed health practitioners wanted more flexibility.
And while struggling to retain qualified talent and lower burnout levels, health organizations can’t afford to underestimate this data.
How can they offer more flexibility to their employees? By rethinking the traditional way of working in a clinic and adopting a hybrid work model.
Research has shown that a hybrid work environment:
Increases retention of healthcare staff: people grow more productive when allowed to choose to work in their preferred work environments, whether that’s their homes, inside a care facility, or switching between locations.
Reduces burnout levels: with clinicians and staff getting to rotate between in-office and remote assignments, they regain a sense of control over their own schedules; over their own power to balance their work and life commitments.
In other words, hybrid work is the solution to improving the working experience of healthcare workers. To keeping them happy and… much less likely to think about quitting their jobs.
Forced by the pandemic or simply willing to try out the hybrid work model so they can adapt and thrive in the new normal, some forward-thinking healthcare organizations have already made the transition.
And they state that they won’t stop anytime soon.
We’re talking about 83% of healthcare organizations who’ve already implemented a hybrid work model. And which now report they’re not planning to go back to the traditional, 100% on-site, way of working in the healthcare industry.
Why? Here are the key benefits of working in a hybrid (or even fully remote setup) that they reported:
We also wanted to find out how the employees in healthcare organizations, themselves, felt about working in a hybrid (or remote) working environment.
Did they feel that their working experience improved, that their quality of life improved, that they were… happier at work?
Here’s what researches tell us:
What healthcare roles are eligible for hybrid working?
For, as you may expect, there are some more suitable than others.
And maybe you just can’t figure out what exactly hybrid work might look like in the case of those roles where in-person consultations and medical exams are crucial.
Based on the answers of 150 surveyed healthcare providers it can be concluded that:
You’ll find more detailed numbers in the report on the state of hybrid work in healthcare.
In short, an unexpectedly wide variety of positions in a healthcare organization can work (and thrive) in a hybrid work setup.
In healthcare specifically, we’re witnessing technology advance rapidly. With a constant interest and demand for technology that enables medical practices to:
Research has shown it: the healthcare industry will have spent US $45 billion on digital transformation by 2030.
And the hybrid work challenge/opportunity only comes to speed up the pace at which healthcare organizations are embracing technological innovation.
With telemedicine software being at the top of the list of technology tools that healthcare organizations adopting a hybrid work model have implemented.
No surprise there, since telemedicine software tools make remote consultations possible. It’s the first type of software organizations implement once they decide to transition to a hybrid work model.
The result? Telehealth usage is 38 times higher today compared to pre-pandemic years.
But here’s what their full list of software tools used for successful hybrid work setups looks like:
Telemedicine software
Video-capable conferencing hardware
Patient portal
Security software
Modern and/or router
Patient self-scheduling tools
Telemonitoring tools
Remote patient monitoring software
The real challenge? Putting together the right technology architecture for hybrid work while preserving the genuine human touch specific to healthcare interactions.
With healthcare providers working in a hybrid setup — thanks to telemedicine and all the other information and communication technologies tools that make digital healthcare possible — the impact on the environment is reduced.
And one research that supports this is the one conducted by the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. This has shown that since the start of the pandemic, teleconsultations and, overall, telehealth services generated a significant range of environmental benefits:
In short, healthcare providers cut down on their commuting time between clinics, hospitals, and their homes.
In the meantime, patients — especially those who had to take multiple buses to get to the hospitals/clinics — no longer felt constrained/discouraged by their limited access to transportation to get the care they needed.
And all these savings in time, effort, and gas/CO2 emissions had a measurable positive impact on the environment.
The type of benefit that comes with hybrid work in healthcare that’s too valuable to underestimate when deciding whether transitioning to this way of working is… worthy enough or not.
Up to this point, you might:
And as you start to reimagine your work model, you also start to ask yourself what workspace technology to go for. To power your new flexible work arrangement with.
Yarooms — the workplace management software for hybrid work — comes packed with all the features you need to make this new setup… work for you:
Whereas your medical staff gets:
And for a more in-depth analysis of the measurable benefits of adopting such a work arrangement in your organization download the report on The State of Hybrid Work in Healthcare that you can find at the end of this post.
What now?
The next steps to take now, as you’re ready to leverage the advantages of a hybrid work environment in your healthcare organization are: