https://mailchi.mp/e1b9f9c249d0/the-weekly-gist-september-15-2023?e=d1e747d2d8

We had an interesting exchange with a health system CEO this week, which started as a discussion about what to tell his board about the rapidly changing AI landscape, but drifted into a larger conversation about how human-dependent healthcare is. His system has invested heavily in virtual care and has begun to make strides in applying automation and artificial intelligence to both clinical care delivery and key operational processes. He’s glimpsed the potential for process automation—AI’s less sexy sibling, now that “generative AI” has burst onto the scene—to radically reduce staffing costs in areas like revenue cycle management.

And that’s making him wonder about the larger implications for workforce development—both inside his organization and in the economy as a whole. Like many health systems, his organization not only provides care to the community, but also employment opportunities and job growth. 

What happens when large swaths of healthcare delivery become more automated—how will the system look to retrain those workers for other roles? 

One clear area of workforce need over the coming decades will be hands-on caregiving for an older, sicker population that wants to age in place. Health aides, home health workers, community social workers and so forth—will those roles ultimately be filled by workers from other parts of healthcare (and the economy beyond) who find themselves displaced by AI and robotics? 

Will the Amazon warehouse worker of today become the home care worker of tomorrow? 

The conversation was fascinating and made us realize that we’ve paid too little attention to two key issues.

First, the tension between healthcare as a cost problem and healthcare as a source of job growth.

And second, the redistribution of workers into roles that will require hands-on, human presence (like caregiving) in the coming wave of AI and robotics.