In a paper published today in the New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst, five key members of the global organization Future of Health (FOH), including FAH leader Chip Kahn, take a deep dive into the growing health care workforce crisis – analyzing the causes and laying out recommendations for change. The paper is entitled – Designing the Health Care Workforce of the Future.   

“The pandemic-related staffing shortages unmasked a key vulnerability in our health and health care ecosystem and resulted in severe access waits, delays, and forgone care dramatically increasing the burden of illness in our communities”, the paper states. 

“As an industry, we have an opportunity and an obligation to embrace and lean into the future. This will require leadership, collaboration, and a clear vision. We will need to attract and retain the very best workforce to serve our patients and communities.” 

FOH members convened to identify the top five challenges facing the health care workforce of the future including: 

• Embrace change 
• Understand and address workforce dissatisfiers 
• Ensure vertical commitment within health care organizations 
• Establish clear and committed leadership 
• Educate the workforce to thrive with the tools and care delivery models of the future 

The complete paper can be found here. It was published as part of a wider focus by the NEJM on the workforce crisis and the conclusions were developed through semi-structured, open-ended discussion tools to drive group discussions on key topics and used a Delphi method to determine consensus and priorities.  

The FOH paper was authored by: 

• Gary S. Kaplan, MD, Senior Advisor and Senior Vice President, CommonSpirit Health 
• Christoph A. Meier, MD, Director, Department of Internal Medicine, University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland 
• Charles (Chip) N. Kahn III, MPH, Founding Co-Chair, Future of Health, President and CEO, Federation of American Hospitals 
• Eyal Zimlichman, MD, MSc, Founding Co-Chair, Future of Health, Chief Transformation and Innovation Officer, Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan, Israel 
• Claudia A. Salzberg, PhD, MSE, Director of Research, Future of Health, Associate Faculty, Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University