Healthcare for Millennials: Opportunities and Challenges
A panel discussion, moderated by Dr. Ken Farion of the Faculty of Medicine and the CHEO Research Institute, brought together three of our researchers to discuss the future of healthcare services with an audience of approximately 80 healthcare professionals, students and researchers.
· Ivy Lynn Bourgeault, Full Professor and Holder of the CIHR Chair in Gender, Work and Health Human Resources
· François Chiocchio, Associate Professor and Holder of the Montfort Research Chair in the Organization of Health Services
· Craig Kuziemsky, Full Professor, Telfer School and Holder of a University Research Chair in Healthcare Innovation
The presenters shared perspectives on some of the defining healthcare system challenges for the millennial generation, and how best to prepare for them.
Professor Bourgeault put the emphasis on healthcare human-resource issues and called for renewed action by policy-makers. Canada needs a bold new approach to health workforce planning and millennials know that better than previous generations did, Bourgeault said. She predicted that the new generation will approach critical gaps in healthcare delivery through a more sophisticated health-workforce planning lens.
Professor Chiocchio said the next generation of healthcare workers will increasingly recognize interprofessional collaboration within healthcare teams as a core challenge that has to be addressed. He anticipates there will be a greater willingness to develop new competencies in areas such as project collaboration that can made a big difference in team performance, and ultimately, healthcare delivery.
Professor Kuziemsky explored the potential for the next generation of healthcare providers and users to use digital technologies in ways that produce better patient care. A true era of patient-centred medicine is coming. However, the quality of healthcare services will depend as much on innovations within the business-of-healthcare as it will on clinical innovations. He said a fundamental change needed on the business side is for individuals to become integrated into collaborative teams.
The main take-home message from this panel was that in order to seize these opportunities, healthcare providers, researchers, and users should be open to radically new approaches to the organization of healthcare work.
