How much will the shortage of medical personnel rise / What role can Artificial Intelligence play
Hospital from Romania. Illustrative photo by Suliman Răzvan / Shutterstock.com
The World Health Organization estimates that by 2030, there will be a global shortage of at least ten million people working in the health sector. However, there are ways in which the medical personnel crisis can be solved, writes the public health expert of the international company McKinsey, Pooja Kumar.
Currently, 60% of the world's population, nearly 4.5 billion people, do not have access to essential medical services. The biggest shortage of medical personnel is in Africa, a continent that has 52% of the world shortage. However, imbalances in the distribution of doctors are also found in America – in the US there are many doctors in large cities, and few to none in small urban and rural areas.
The shortage of medical personnel is determined by both demand and supply factors, explains expert Pooja Kumar, in the Re:think newsletter. On the demand side, the aging population leads to more age-related diseases. When it comes to supply, lack of infrastructure, professional training and underfunding of the medical field are some of the reasons.
“Many people who would like to pursue a career in the medical field find that the necessary education is difficult to access, expensive, time-consuming and sometimes unaffordable,” notes the expert.
She also points out that professional exhaustion – known as “burnout” – is another reason why the shortage of doctors is a global problem.
Rethinking professional training and Artificial Intelligence, among the solutions
“It is essential to rethink the way health professional training is done in terms of the structure and duration of programs,” Pooja Kumar writes in the newsletter.
Many of the current training models have not changed in decades and can no longer meet today's needs. “Are we ready to rethink some of the basic assumptions that have underpinned these training programs?” she asks.
Tools based on Artificial Intelligence can also help reduce repetitive activities. For example, at a medical center in New York, electronic patient records are processed by AI, which then e-mails residents important data and diagnostic advice.
How to keep 2 million employees in the healthcare system
More research by McKinsey and Company, cited in Re:think, shows that by addressing the root causes of departures from the system, nearly 2 million healthcare workers globally, now tempted to leave, could be retained.
Another important change involves the recognition that solving the medical personnel crisis does not only mean increasing the number of medical personnel, but also innovation.
The expert also offers an example: patients can have more autonomy in managing their own health problems. This is already happening with in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures – Patients have learned to store their medications, adjust their doses over time, and administer their own injections in consultation with their doctors.
“The health manpower crisis is not a distant threat – it is a present and growing crisis. Yet in decision-making forums, it rarely receives urgent attention. It should,” adds Kumar.
