Search any hospital/health system/practice group human resources job listings and you may realize the challenges in keeping a health care organization fully staffed. If not, search Google for nurse shortage, physician shortage, or read stories like this and this.

Trend: difficult human resources issues.

Some organizations are trying different kinds of benefits, others are trying referral programs, others are trying…

Those types of solutions may be important, but, turbulent times call for new solutions. Well, maybe it starts with Seth’s suggestion of renaming the department to Talent. It could be a difficult maneuver in the traditionally stodgy health care environment, but that’s the point here: this kind of disruption, this fundamental change in how we do business, how we approach opportunities and solutions, how we treat employees, has the potential to excite (it does for me!) people. Talk to someone who works at a new Pebble Project hospital and find out many people applied for the limited number of jobs: the facilities, ideas, and approach to care are different and that brings droves of applicants onto the scene.

But we don’t have to build a new hospital to approach health care in a different way.  Seth (as always thoughtful and completely insightful, and if you haven’t started reading his blog, you need to start, today) says:

Like it or not, in most organizations HR has grown up with a forms/clerical/factory focus. Which was fine, I guess, unless your goal was to do something amazing, something that had nothing to do with a factory, something that required amazing programmers, remarkable marketers or insanely talented strategy people.

Hmm, health care is an industry in deep trouble.  Thinking differently is going to help us get out of the mess: doing something(s!) amazing is the strategy.

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