Job skills for the future of health care
The sheer speed of change has transformed the way that healthcare systems must hire and develop employees.
Today, experience and expertise has become less significant than the ability to learn and adapt as health care evolves. Strong critical thinking, as demonstrated in problem solving and decision-making skills, is the foundation for success, now, and into the future.
Digital technology adaptation, once a far-off future project, has arrived. Besides telemedicine and telehealth, medical personnel are utilizing AI to automate the most costly, repetitive tasks to improve work flow and patient operational flow (admission and discharge) as well as more effectively diagnose, reduce harm and harness deep learning/data mining, among many other innovations.
Top job skills for the future include the ability to learn new competencies and new responsibilities in order to thrive in a culture of curiosity. Regardless of traditional hard skills that an employee or candidate may possess, they will quickly need to learn more. It is necessary for them to be prepared and eager to learn, throughout their career.
When hiring employees for the future, critical thinking skills and mindset must be prioritized.
Employee learning and critical thinking
Learning and critical thinking are interdependent.
Learning requires the interpretation and integration of new knowledge and, then, its practical and appropriate application. Individuals with a strong critical thinking mindset have the consistent internal motivation to tackle problems and make decisions by applying their reasoning skills.
The strongest critical thinkers problem-solve in a focused, systematic and sustained manner. They apply analytical and interpretive thinking. They draw reasonable and logical inferences from new and existing information. After evaluation and decision-making, they are able to explain the quality of their reasoning and arguments.
Critical thinking is one of the key skills valued by employers in all industries, but especially in healthcare. It is predictive of success in a clinical setting. High potential talent has the capacity to think critically, solve complex problems, and communicate clearly.
Characteristics of employees with strong critical thinking:
- have a flexible, curiosity-driven mindset;
- see the benefits of change;
- are motivated to learn and are engaged;
- have the cognitive skills to acquire information and apply new knowledge;
- are flexible and resilient;
- are ready to adapt to changing situations and duties;
- have a strong commitment to succeed;
- are collaborative team players;
- will take an organized and systematic approach to solving problems;
- can analyze and integrate information from a variety of sources;
- can make faster and better-informed decisions;
- have communication skills to express the merit of their decisions;
- have a growth mindset;
- will continue to benefit from ongoing and cross-training;
- are ready to take responsibility for their learning;
- have the highest potential for advancement.
Healthcare employees must be continually learning and learning fast. The future of work is based upon agile employees and teams able to quickly apply new learning in the medical workplace.
Reduce your risk of bad hires
Are you tired of placing people unable to succeed in their new jobs? What about turn-over and burnout? Do new hires leave your organization because they lack the skills or motivation to produce results?
It costs time and money, each time, that your employees fail to master new skills or are unable to assume new responsibilities.
Don’t just fill the position. Hire employees for the future
Before you invest time and money into training new hires, obtain the data you need to ensure that you are hiring only the candidates with the greatest potential to excel.
Your healthcare employees require the ability to quickly interpret current practices and policies, accurately apply protocols, and evaluate their effectiveness within their scope of work.
Critical thinking assessments are a powerful tool in identifying employees with these necessary lifelong learning (part of critical thinking mindset) and critical thinking skills.
Prescreen for strong critical thinking
INSIGHT assessment tools deliver the objective prescreening data to identify your strongest candidates. INSIGHT HEALTH Professional objectively measures the mindset attributes that drive individuals to persist until they find solutions that work.
Comprehensive INSIGHT individual reports describe each candidate’s strengths and weaknesses in 15 key decision-making skills and components of the thinking mindset. Measurements are calibrated to reflect what is needed to succeed in health care as well as responsibility levels. Group reports are available, to document team performance.
Find the INSIGHT to identify the high potential candidates that you require.hea
Critical thinking training for employees
If healthcare employees do not demonstrate strong critical thinking, then it will be important to provide training to improve their skills and mindset. It is more cost-effective to upskill/reskill your existing employees than to try to find qualified candidates.
You can provide the training to prepare your employees for the future.
INSIGHT Development Program delivers a comprehensive, effective, and well-established training to strengthen employee decision-making and problem solving.
Proven online modules focus on the continued improvement of critical thinking skills and mindset. Designed to be used as independent study by employees, INSIGHT Development Program can also be incorporated into existing training programs.
This training is paired with a validated INSIGHT post-test of your employees’ thinking mindset attributes and reasoning skills to measure improvement. Have the data to identify your critical thinking high achievers, measure the progress of your workforce, and be able to scale and repeat your success stories.
Be proactive. If healthcare employees are not skilled enough to fill available, and future jobs, then invest in the job skills for the future that your organization needs to grow and prosper.