technology
Time to
ditch the
corkboard
Despite the popular
assumption, first-line health
workers are not afraid of
the digital future but eager
for new technology to
streamline processes.
Ian Heard interviewed by Dallas Bastian
A
new survey on the way different sectors approach
technology has revealed a mismatch between the views of
first-line health workers and executives.
The research, commissioned by Microsoft, highlighted
an eagerness among first-line health workers to engage
with technology, yet 88 per cent of health sector managers who
responded said one of the challenges of digital transformation was
getting departments to overcome the fear of massive change.
Analyst firm YouGov surveyed 1390 working adults for Microsoft
in September this year. It focused on four sectors – health, retail,
financial services and manufacturing.
Of the first-line health workers surveyed, about two-thirds believe
digital technology will help revolutionise the healthcare industry,
while 59 per cent want to work for digitally enabled organisations.
The vast majority (85 per cent) believe technology can help
streamline processes, freeing them up for more direct care. While
first-line health workers acknowledge these benefits to technology,
more than two-thirds fear that automation leads to job losses.
Microsoft suggested this issue, as well as why managers feel there
is departmental resistance to change, could be put down to a lack
of communication.
More than a third of first-line workers said their organisation
is not effective in communicating digital transformations, while
61 per cent said they don’t have an active and participatory role in
how technology is deployed.
While 75 per cent of health sector managers said they knew what
the organisation was doing with respect to digital technologies, this
plunged to 41 per cent among first-line workers.
Ian Heard, general manager of digital workplace and collaboration
at Microsoft Australia, said first-line workers are still being updated in
“team meetings or even via old-fashioned cork noticeboards”. Heard
said the survey, which was released to coincide with the launch of
Microsoft 365 F1, highlights the importance of encouraging workers,
regardless of their position in the organisation, to give and receive
constructive feedback.
34 agedcareinsite.com.au
Organisations that engage first-line workers in their digital
transformation initiatives – ensuring they were inclusive, simple
and effective, supporting first-line creativity and teamwork
while preserving enterprise and employee security – would find
themselves better placed to succeed with strategic priorities,
he added.
“Digital transformation is powerful but everyone needs access,”
Heard said. “First-line workers are the key to the next wave of
successful digital transformation and sustained competitiveness.”
Aged Care Insite unpacked more of the survey’s findings with
Heard and got his thoughts on how to better engage staff in digital
transformation initiatives.
ACI: Overall, what did the survey reveal about the way first-line
health staff viewed the technology used in the sector?
IH: What it unearthed was a culture that isn’t afraid to embrace
technology and, in fact, is very open and excited about the
opportunities that technology can bring to digitally transform patient
experience and quality of care.
You did find that health workers were gloomier than their peers
in other industries about the digital transformation progress
in their sector. Does the progression of technology in the
healthcare sector align with that in other sectors?
If we look at the healthcare industry, the administration work, the
back-office work, is pretty much up there in terms of maturity of
technology usage. Now, what the survey shows is it doesn’t mean
that it’s proliferated to the first line. We still hear of first-line workers
being updated either in management or team meetings, or even via
the old-fashioned cork noticeboard, whether they’re being told of
changes from a compliance perspective, or insights from other parts
of the healthcare industry, or other countries, or updates on what’s
going on in their healthcare organisation.
So, from outside there’s a lot that can be done for first-line workers
now. And by the way, healthcare isn’t an outlier here – we’re seeing
it in other markets such as retail, finance, mining, manufacturing, etc.
There’s still this cultural divide between the first-line worker and the
management or administration staff at an organisation.
So we’re definitely seeing that gap. We absolutely believe that
technology can go an awfully long way to bridge that gap and start
compressing the silos in an organisation so that the healthcare
industry in general can be much more front-facing to provide more
relevant, faster [services] and also free up more time for the first-line
workers to be spending with the patient.