WorkforceRx with Futuro Health: Recent Episodes
Futuro Health
There has never been a stronger need for workers to adapt. To keep up with the speed of change, we must be prepared to shift into new job roles and pick up new skills. Traditional approaches no longer suffice. Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan interviews leaders and innovators for insights into the future of work, future of care, future of higher education, and alternative education-to-work models. We will need to draw on our collectively ingenuity to uncover ways to develop work, workers, and economic opportunity.
Boosting completion rates at higher education institutions in the US has been a hot topic for years, with particular concern given to the relatively low 43% rate for community colleges. We're going to take a look at solutions to that problem today with Dr. Steve Handel, director of strategy for Post -Secondary Education Transformation at ECMC Foundation. “Part of the work we would like to do is figure out ways to improve that completion rate, particularly for students who we might not predict initially would have the wherewithal to complete a degree. How do we change the structures that were built for a different set of constituencies in a different age,” Handel tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Key steps include addressing obstacles for working adults and adult students with children and improving the transfer process between community colleges and a four-year institutions. A bigger lift might be changing financial incentives so that colleges focus more on completion than the number of students admitted. “Colleges and universities, like all organizations, are going to pivot to the ways that sustain their institutions,” he says. Tune in for an informative scan of other ideas including expanded use of online education, integrating work experiences into degree programs, addressing the high cost of education, and doing a better job of communicating just how essential post-secondary learning is to social and economic mobility.
Because Medicare is the largest payer for healthcare services in the U.S., there are continuous efforts throughout the country to control costs and improve quality in the program. We're going to focus on one of those efforts today, and take a look at what's involved in improving healthcare quality in general, with Jennifer Lundblad, president and CEO of Stratis Health, a Minnesota nonprofit that works with clinicians, organizations, and communities towards that end. “We, and our peers who do this work across the country, are sort of the boots on the ground quality improvers. We're trusted because we're local, we've had long -standing relationships, and we're really valued for the change agent expertise we bring.” Creating peer-to-peer learning and action networks and offering various forms of technical assistance serve the goal of building the capacity of organizations to do ongoing quality improvement work on their own. In terms of what would strengthen the field, Lundblad believes greater use of implementation science could help spread best practices, and co-design could make quality programs more relevant and effective. “Co-design brings to the fore the voices and experiences of those who are traditionally not part of a quality improvement process. It’s an emerging approach that will allow us to design things in the right way from the start.” Join Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan for an encouraging exploration of the often invisible but critically important work of quality improvement in healthcare.
One of the oldest forms of training, apprenticeship, has new relevance in the age of AI according to today’s WorkforceRx guest Vinz Koller, a nationally influential voice on the subject and self-described apprenticeship evangelist. Why? Because the pace of change brought about by AI and other technologies has accelerated to a point where predictions about what specific skills workers in most fields will need even a year from now have questionable value. “The model of apprenticeship is particularly appropriate because in my view, apprenticeship is a look into the future. You are actually in the workplace. You don't have to predict what things will be like in ten years. The workplace will evolve and you will evolve with it,” Koller tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. In his role as senior strategist for Capacity Building at Social Policy Research Associates, Koller works with local communities, states, and the US government to determine how to make work-based learning more accessible to more people. On the learner/worker side, a welcome step would be enabling apprentices to earn an associate-level degree upon completion of their training. For employers, key needs include regulatory changes to make hosting apprentices easier and help with setting-up and tracking programs. The aim, he says, is to turn more employers into “co-producers of talent” instead of just consumers of it. This expansive conversation also covers the multi-faceted return on investment for employers, the need for high school recruitment programs, and the role apprenticeships could play in reducing student debt.
Our exploration of solutions for growing and strengthening the direct care workforce continues on this episode of WorkforceRx with a close look at a potentially transformative employee-owned cooperative model that’s gaining traction in California. In the eyes of our guest, Aquilina Soriano Versoza, the higher pay and better working conditions that co-ops can provide will help grow an urgently needed workforce and address current injustices that prevail in the “wild west” of private home care. “Very typically, Filipino immigrant caregivers are receiving $5 or less per hour with no overtime, no job security, and no benefits. Some are earning just above $2 an hour,” she explains to Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. As executive director of the Pilipino Workers Center of Southern California, Versoza has helped pioneer a co-op model that, in addition to higher wages, offers on-the-job skills training, education in operating a co-op business, and the opportunity to work in teams. There are several co-ops up and running now, and a franchise approach is being put in place to increase scale. “In five years, we have the vision that every metropolis in California will have a cooperative option, both for workers as well as individuals who want to access long term care through a cooperative.” Spend some time with this thoughtful national leader who sees the crisis in home care as an opportunity to improve the quality of life for both the seniors receiving care and the workers providing it.
“I think training is gonna be so different looking in the next few years than what we're used to,” says Anson Green who brings a very seasoned eye to the workforce training landscape. After decades working in adult education, Green is now helping Tyson Foods train an incredibly diverse global workforce and, in the U.S. 60% are immigrants with very limited digital and language skills. As he explains to Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, succeeding at this challenge starts with a belief in their ability to learn. “They're very, very mobile in terms of their models of how to get things done, and they figure things out.” The big change he sees coming is due to AI-powered training programs that allow him to customize content by reading level, language and other factors with a few clicks instead of many hours of effort. Another key factor is that technology is getting easier to use. “We've got this really sweet spot where robots that five years ago would have taken an associate's degree to be able to run, I could teach you how to run in an afternoon.” This is a great chance to learn about leading edge training programs at one of the world’s largest food companies and to find out about a hidden workforce training jewel in nearly every US community.
“I'm able to be here with you today because my son is at a wonderful childcare provider home,” says WorkforceRx guest, Rachel Wick, to illustrate how critical direct care workers are to our lives and economy. Wick, the senior program officer for Blue Shield of California Foundation, describes childcare and direct care provided in the home for the elderly and disabled as ‘the work that makes all other work possible.’ As she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, it’s time our society valued it as such and invested in the sector the way we invest in public schools and healthcare. Wick is hoping the foundation’s new report, Forging a Sustainable Future for California's Direct Care Workforce, will help provide a shared understanding of these workers and their challenges among all relevant stakeholders to help advance needed policy changes. Raising up this worker population and increasing economic security for other low-income communities is part of the foundation’s overall mission to remove barriers to health and wellbeing, especially among people of color, in order to build lasting and equitable solutions that will make California the healthiest state. “As we listen to families across California, what they tell us is that health and wellbeing and stability is just not possible when you are caught in a relentless daily struggle for survival.” Tune in to learn more about the role economic security plays in health, and how unionization and cooperative business models may be part of the answer to elevating a critically important workforce.
If you would love to know what’s on the minds of the leaders of the nation’s largest health systems as they tackle workforce challenges and a host of other issues, but don’t happen to have the time to talk to all 150 of them, then this episode of WorkforceRx is for you. The well-placed source supplying this intelligence is Renee DeSilva, CEO of The Health Management Academy which provides advice, research, knowledge sharing, and leadership development for hospitals and other healthcare companies. Although labor costs and labor shortages continue to vex healthcare leaders, DeSilva is encouraged by the energy and innovation she’s seeing around solutions such as upskilling current employees, leaning into skills-based hiring, and creating talent pipelines with local educators. “I'm seeing a lot of creativity and partnership energy around solving the workforce challenge structurally, and then also just making the folks that we do have more productive and creating more of a thriving environment around them,” she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Leaders are also taking a fresh look at leveraging the knowledge and talents of nurse managers and giving them greater agency to implement solutions. As a student of leadership and a leader herself, DeSilva appreciates the front row seat she has watching members of the C-suite navigate a dizzying array problems. “It's really interesting to see how each of them leans into their unique gifts. I think that's where everyone has their power alley.” You’ll leave this conversation with a better sense of the paths being taken to the future of care and the tactics leaders are using to get there.
Evolving employee expectations for working conditions and years of a tight labor market have created steady challenges for human resources professionals. For a look at how those roles are evolving in response, and, to learn about current best practices, we turn today to Wendi Safstrom, president of the SHRM Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the world's largest HR professional society. “We're problem-solving based on research that we do in the field with our HR pros with the goal to help HR get better and help them lead positive social change in the workplace.” As you’ll learn on this episode of WorkforceRx hosted by Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, that change includes ensuring health equity at work, providing support for mental health needs and adopting a “skills-first” approach to hiring, which can provide opportunity to populations who have often been shut out of the hiring process. “HR professionals have an obligation to contribute to bettering the lives of others, and what better way to do that than by employing an individual and demonstrating a culture that's welcoming for everyone?” In this informative conversation, Wendi also addresses the use of AI in hiring, the need for HR staff to attend to their own mental health, and the free resources SHRM makes available to employers of all sizes.
For those concerned about teacher burnout and retention issues in K-12 education, Curtis Johnson has seen an innovative model in action that could provide an answer: let teachers run the schools. Johnson, a veteran educator, policy analyst and author, says there are already several hundred such schools in twenty-three states, what he describes as a slow growing movement. While interviewing staff at these schools for his book A New Deal for Teachers, he heard a consistent message. “They first convince me that they're working harder than they've ever worked in their lives and then they go on to say that nobody ought to ever take this away from them because they have more fulfillment professionally and personally. These schools hold on to most all of their teachers every year,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Johnson is attracted to ideas that upend what he considers failing models of education, as you might expect from the co-author of Disrupting Class, which argues for shifting to a personalized and mastery-based approach. “Students today are so different from previous generations that you've got to treat them individually, yet in the current system of K-12, it's not financially feasible to regard them as individuals and so personalization is something that people claim, but rarely do.” Tune in for a candid conversation about breaking the grip of centralized systems, how K-12 education should incorporate AI, and why he believes up to half of colleges and universities in the US will close in the next decade.
As almost any employer can tell you, today’s workers have high expectations for compensation, the quality of their work experience, and the level of work-life balance. Today’s WorkforceRx guest, David Jarrard, would add one key item to that list: they also expect to have a voice when organizations make important decisions. That means leaders have to engage with workers, not just communicate to them, and that requires creating opportunities for dialogue. “There's ways for ideas to be shared back and forth so that even if the ideas that are shared aren't the ones that are adopted, there was a sense of being heard, a sense of being listened to. We have found it to be extremely valuable to retention,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. One of the best approaches is for leaders to rely less on the ever-expanding array of digital communications tools and take the old school approach of walking the halls. “To build trust you've got to look somebody in the eye. You've got to shake their hand. You’ve got to have that moment of pause where you can actually listen and be in the presence of another person. It’s a fundamentally important investment right now.” Tune in for a wide array of other insights from a seasoned pro that more than 1,000 healthcare organizations across forty-five states have turned to for guidance on how to communicate with internal and external audiences about restructurings, workforce challenges and other high stakes issues.
“It is not enough to suggest that people who are unemployed simply need to get a job. For us, it's about connecting to your understanding of what is your vision for yourself and your families? How do you add value, because you are valuable and we need your contribution,” says Sheila Ireland, president and CEO of Philadelphia OIC, a venerable force in the city’s workforce training landscape. Workforce development as a tool for economic empowerment and social justice is in the DNA of OIC, and it’s a philosophy Ireland, who has 30 years of leadership experience in human resources and workforce training, is building on as she tackles persistently high rates of poverty and unemployment in what is ranked as the poorest big city in America. As she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, she believes the formula for success has to include high expectations of clients and private sector partners who can move trainees beyond the first rung of the career ladder. Tune in for a candid and super insightful discussion of best practices in workforce training and stay tuned to hear about positive signs in Philadelphia of growing job opportunities in the tech sector and higher ed institutions being more responsive to the needs of lower-income students.
In the battle against declining enrollments and declining perceptions of value, higher education organizations need to be flexible and meet employers and students where they are, says today’s WorkforceRx guest Karilyn Van Oosten. Her company, Unitek Learning -- a provider of workforce solutions and career training programs for the healthcare industry -- is doing that literally by bringing its educational offerings on site to healthcare organizations in what it calls a “school in the box” model. “They're able to go ahead and provide the setting for the clinicals and the skills lab, and we're able to go ahead and provide the curriculum, approvals, faculty...all of the pieces that are necessary to be able to deliver the curriculum and have these individuals be practice ready the moment they graduate,” she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. As for providing value to students, Van Oosten says the key is understanding they want fast-paced educational experiences that allow them to move smoothly into the workforce. Meeting that need without sacrificing quality is the challenge. Don’t miss this compelling conversation in which Van Oosten also shares her insights on stackable credentials, ‘learn and earn’ programs, and other signs of flexibility in workforce training programs that are trying to deliver the healthcare providers we all need.
“Because of the workforce shortages, there is more creativity and more willingness to be innovative, and I think we can make something out of this crisis,” says Rick Brooks, who has his hands full leading Rhode Island’s efforts to strengthen and grow the healthcare workforce. His optimism is based on new levels of engagement by key stakeholders to find solutions and the formation of some unlikely collaborations to bring them to life. “For example, there are partnerships happening between higher education programs that have traditionally viewed each other as competitors to develop agreements that grant credits for non-credit activities,” he tells Futuro Health CEO and WorkforceRx host Van Ton-Quinlivan. He also cites licensure boards being open to rethinking education requirements for nursing faculty and the recredentialing of foreign trained health professionals, and other signs of innovation. In this expansive conversation, Brooks, a veteran labor educator, advocate and leader, shares strategies and insights on a wide array of issues including loan repayment programs, expanding clinical placement opportunities and redesigning career ladders with more, and more achievable, rungs so that people can stay in the healthcare field. It’s an impressive menu of options that might just inspire some creative thinking of your own.
The growing crisis in homelessness across the US has understandably garnered a lot of news coverage and attention from policymakers, and today’s WorkforceRx guest wants to make sure one key facet of the problem is not overlooked as solutions are discussed. “There's a lot of over-representation of older people in the homelessness rates, and older Black Californians -- and this is a staggering statistic -- are five times more likely to become homeless than their white counterparts,” says Dr. Sarita Mohanty, president and CEO of The SCAN Foundation, whose work is centered in the nexus of age, poverty and equity. As one of the largest foundations in the US focused on improving the quality of health and life for older adults, The SCAN Foundation supports a wide variety of initiatives to address the complex factors preventing many Americans from aging well. On this episode, Dr. Mohanty shares some positive notes with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan about statewide efforts in California that include expanded Medicaid access, moves to professionalize the home care workforce and the formation of Master Plans of Aging (MPA) at the state and local level. “There are some important areas of need that these MPA stakeholders are identifying and then they're actually advocating at a policy level to get these addressed.” Stay tuned for many more examples of cross-sector collaborations that are accelerating solutions to this critically important problem affecting Americans of all ages.
State departments of health play a huge role in America's healthcare system, with responsibility for public health, licensure, public policy, and much more, so the workforce challenges they face have broad implications. “It will probably be twenty years before we really begin to bend the curve because many of the workforce shortages we encounter require very long-term strategies to change,” says Paula Nickelson, Director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Expanding slots for physician residencies and training opportunities for Certified Nursing Assistants are just two of the steps being pursued. Student loan reform, synching up higher ed with the needs of employers and better data management are also on her list but, as she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, Nickelson thinks these types of changes will not improve healthcare as much as a major shift toward prevention would. “We will never change our health indicators in a positive way, nor will we get out of the escalating spiral of acute care costs and long-term care costs, until we invest in public health and prevention.” This episode of WorkforceRx promises an insightful state-level perspective on workforce and health system challenges confronting the entire nation.
“If I looked at higher education writ large, as we've traditionally defined it, I'd say that the patient is sick right now,” says Michael Horn, a prominent national voice on reimagining education at both the K-12 and post-secondary levels. Horn sees a misalignment between education consumers who are seeking greater value, and education suppliers -- especially brick-and-mortar institutions -- who have not found a way to manage high cost structures and offer more flexible, lower cost, online options. And, as he explains to Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, online offerings won’t be a solution either unless they are carefully designed around student outcomes, how to teach the material effectively and how to measure if students are actually learning it. “Technology can be a really useful enabler of assessment, of feedback and of delivering customized curriculum, but it's not about the use of technology for its own sake.” Among Horn’s other prescriptions are getting schools to focus more on improving learning models, and moving to a competency-based approach. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear one of the foremost thinkers on education reform address a wide array of issues from organizational model change, to addressing learning loss and social-emotional deficits, to new learning options in higher education. Be sure to stay tuned for a sneak peek at Horn’s new book due out next year which focuses on how to develop a deeper sense of what you’re looking for when changing jobs or careers.
Doctors who realize that creating a local jobs program can be as important to helping their patients as writing a prescription have the kind of broad perspective that today’s WorkforceRx guest wants all health providers to adopt. “I think that context is oftentimes lost on providers in medical school or nursing school where they're not connecting the patient to the entire context of their lives,” says Dr. Sriram Shamasunder, the co-founder of the Health Equity Action and Leadership initiative at UC San Francisco. The idea for HEAL grew out of global public health work Shamasunder had done himself in which he felt like he didn’t understand all of the factors impacting his patients’ health status -- what he calls the structural determinants of care. “That requires mentorship. It requires the correct curriculum...kind of reorienting what medical education is,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Each class of HEAL Fellows includes a mix of doctors from the US, Navajo Nation and the Global South. “It's this really incredible learning community where for two years, they're doing clinical work and project work to become better advocates and better leaders.” Tune in for a thoughtful look at using medicine as a way to establish trust in resource-denied communities and how HEAL is a potential solution to address vacancies in Native communities.
While there’s little that matches the excitement a new school year brings, it’s tempered somewhat this year by the need to continue recovering from the many disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Learning loss, declining enrollments and increases in behavioral problems are just a few of the issues that education leaders are grappling with. Our WorkforceRx guest, Carissa Moffat Miller, is in the thick of efforts to help school system leaders find potential solutions as CEO of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). “This disruption has created an opportunity for us to think about things differently, and for state chiefs to change the ecosystem of school,” she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. There are some new programmatic options to consider in doing that thanks to $190 billion in federal funding that allowed states to experiment with different approaches to tutoring, after school programs and digital learning, among other initiatives. One of CCSSO’s key roles, Moffat Miller says, is sharing examples of what worked coming out of that process and highlighting best practices on a continuing basis. And while keeping a close eye on recovery, her members are also looking forward as reflected in the new report Imagining More: How State Education Agencies Can Modernize the K-12 System. “The chiefs see their role as setting conditions and clearing a path for districts who are ready to take the next step.” Tune in to hear examples of what’s working across the country to improve K-12 education and what role employers can play in supporting state education goals.
“Healthcare is just so large and complex and expensive. We've got to find better ways to reach across political divides, ideological disagreements and narrow, sector-based perspectives,” says Tanya Harris, who runs the Health Innovators Fellowship at the Aspen Institute which is designed to do just that. The program provides a diverse group of mid-career professionals with the opportunity to do the kind of connecting and thinking that’s not possible in the rush of daily life. “They're away from family, they're away from work and they're in this big space so they can think differently. People take bigger bets in their own professional journey than they might have otherwise,” she explains to Futuro Heath CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Examples include fellows coming together to tackle subjects as wide-ranging as adolescent mental health, supply chain innovation and health equity. One current fellow is a fire chief trying to meet the challenge of overwhelmed hospital emergency rooms. “It's a really impressive group of folks that have been in, and continue to be in, this fellowship, and the possibilities are really endless.” This engaging conversation is a great opportunity to learn about efforts to foster greater coordination in the U.S. healthcare system and the importance of aligning incentives to achieve better outcomes.
There’s an old solution for some of the toughest challenges facing today’s US labor market, including a lack of skilled workers, inequitable access to well-paying jobs and an aging workforce: apprenticeships. That’s according to our WorkforceRx guest, Dr. Mardy Leathers, executive director of Apprenticeships for America. “Apprenticeship programs are great at upskilling, they're great at supporting incumbent workers and they are great at preparing people as they enter the workforce,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. While apprenticeships have been a popular model for work-based learning for centuries in Europe and elsewhere, the US has never fully embraced them. Changing that, Leathers says, will require the expansion of intermediaries -- organizations that design and register apprenticeship programs and provide support to learners and employers throughout the experience. “Employers can't do it on their own. If someone can help them navigate the process, they are much more likely to lean in.” Don’t miss a great learning opportunity that might change your perceptions of apprenticeships, help you understand the standards and criteria involved, and introduce you to new funding models and ways of seeing their value to employers.
Worsening staff shortages in healthcare are prompting some big shifts in how hospitals are approaching the issue, and New Mexico is a good case in point. As we learn from today’s WorkforceRx guest, Troy Clark, who runs the state’s hospital association, a traditionally competitive mindset is yielding to a more collaborative approach. “We have this limited workforce that we're all fighting for, and our history has been...am I a better recruiter or not? Yet, what we learned and succeeded at very well in New Mexico during the pandemic was that when we collaborate, we can still compete and we will all win,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Additionally, his members are realizing they have substantial disadvantages in competing against hospitals in other states for a limited supply of workers, so they are adopting a “grow your own” strategy instead. Elements include working with the state and other partners to expand clinical learning opportunities, encouraging community colleges to leverage remote learning technology to serve remote parts of the state, and getting more people from a diverse set of communities interested in healthcare careers in the first place. Tune in as Van and Troy explore other solutions including redesigning care teams and educating people about the many non-clinical roles available in the space.
“We're asking students effectively to take a bet on themselves and what we have seen in recent years is the growing problem of debt that doesn't pay off for them,” says Sameer Gadkaree, President & CEO of The Institute for College Access and Success. Among the 44 million Americans affected, the debt load is $30,000 for the average borrower, including those who did not complete their certificate program or degree. As Gadkaree points out to Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, risk in the higher education system has gradually been shifted over several decades to students and their families. A big part of the solution, he says, is building debt-free paths to college by stitching together existing local, state and federal programs and supplementing financial support as needed. But the answer also needs to include a variety of tools to help students to completion such as advising, social supports and making sure they are receiving food assistance and other benefits for which they qualify. Gadkaree cites several programs across the country that are doubling graduation rates by taking this approach, and hopes that others working on these daunting challenges will pause to celebrate successes and look at the larger trends. “I think there's a growing awareness of the harms of student debt, the challenges that it creates for our borrowers and that we really need to change if we're going to achieve greater racial equity and economic mobility.”
While it will be years before researchers can render a verdict on how the wholesale shift to online learning during COVID impacted student performance, it’s already clear that in higher education, post-pandemic use of education technology and positively attitudes about it have both increased. Research also shows that professors and students expect more use of digital course materials and technology going forward. Our guest on this episode of WorkforceRx, Matthew Rascoff, is keeping a close eye on these trends as vice provost for Digital Education at Stanford University. “Part of the legacy of the pandemic is the plurality of approaches that are now available to instructors. It’s important to start with the needs of our learners and work our way backwards to the modality that will meet those needs most effectively,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Rascoff is encouraged by what he calls a huge wave of entrepreneurship in learning technology, some of which will be advanced by his students at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. “They have really amazing ideas for what that future is going to look like and I hope it is a more inclusive technology environment designed to serve learners who have been underserved in the past.” Learn about a new asynchronous platform to build learning communities; a free, online model for small group book discussions; and a non-profit “bootcamp” that builds both job skills and social capital. Plus, Matthew and Van discuss the emergence of AI tutors, and a program that offers Stanford courses for credit to Title I high schools across the country.
“I haven't really seen that much in my career as a journalist where California and Alabama are rowing in the same direction. I do think workforce development is that rare issue that cuts through some of the partisan noise,” says Paul Fain, a veteran observer of higher education and workforce training. His weekly newsletter, The Job, focuses on the nexus between education and work, so he is always on the hunt for what’s new and interesting in these fields. As he shares with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, one area that stands out is the growth in experiential learning and career exploration through simulations and micro-internships. “One company I looked at offers learning simulations to college students that are designed by companies so the student can decide ‘Am I good at this? Do I like this?’” Another area of new energy is based on a very old model: apprenticeships. “Apprenticeships are hot. You're seeing lots of C-suite excitement about them. That said, we spend a tiny proportion of public funding on apprenticeships relative to traditional higher education.” Overall, Fain senses growing urgency among business leaders that growing income equality is an existential threat to our economy and society, a view he shares. Tune in for a wealth of insights into what Fain calls “one of the biggest stories of my career.”
“The evidence is very sparse when it comes to effective practice in the workforce development field,” says Brent Orrell of The American Enterprise Institute. This concerning conclusion comes from the Workforce Futures Initiative, a collaborative project between AEI, the Brookings Institution and the Harvard Kennedy School Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy. But it’s not all bad news. The strong exception is sector-based training. “That is one of the rare gems where we can say with relative certainty that if workforce development practitioners do this approach in the right way, they can get good results.” As Orrell explains to Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, the strength of this model derives from integrating technical skills training with instruction in so-called “soft skills” which are essential to being able to succeed in the workplace. The result is dramatic and continued increases in wages that lead to family-sustaining incomes. Orrell also credits these programs with doing a better job at keeping trainees engaged through to completion than is typically the case at community colleges which, he says, badly need a boost in the number of educational and career advising staff. Be sure to check out this thoughtful discussion on what works in workforce development, the extra responsibility Americans have to put their skills to work at the highest level, and why we shouldn’t be afraid of generative AI.
What’s the value of having health insurance if you can’t access care? That’s an increasingly pertinent question for states which have successfully expanded insurance eligibility in recent years but are struggling to meet the increasing demand for healthcare. Our guest today on WorkforceRx, Dr. Sandra Hernandez, is a key player in developing solutions to this problem in her role as president and CEO of the California Health Care Foundation. One approach is to use the current workforce strategically. “We're very focused on looking at the primary care model and the composition of the primary care team so we can use every drop of workforce that we have to its fullest capabilities.” In part, that means reserving physician time for complex cases while expanding the scope for practice for nurses and mid-level providers. Another strategy is beefing up the ranks of community health workers drawn from underserved communities. As Hernandez tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, they have proven to be valuable public health advocates due to the trusting relationships they can build. “They can share information that is scientifically-based, and at the same time they are able to encourage people to get enrolled in the programs that they're eligible for and get them into earlier care.” Don’t miss this veteran perspective on vexing issues facing many areas of the US -- including how to care for growing numbers of immigrants and the unsheltered -- and stay tuned for a dose of optimism rooted in lessons learned from the pandemic.
It’s safe to say that nearly everyone reading this has a profile on LinkedIn or, if not, has visited it to learn about someone else’s career history. The social media giant has 900 million registered members worldwide and has become an essential tool for employers, job seekers and entrepreneurs. On this episode of WorkforceRx we’ll hear from one of LinkedIn’s founders, Allen Blue, who has stayed with the company for its entire twenty-year history and is now serving as vice president of Product Management. His areas of focus include LinkedIn’s Economic Graph, which involves sharing economic data with governments and institutions to improve education and workforce policy. “We derive insights about how skills are emerging and changing, about the landscape of education, about new technologies...and we aggregate all that data and go talk to policymakers so that governments can act.” In this thoughtful conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, Blue highlights ways people can use LinkedIn to visualize a career path, how technology can be deployed to connect employers to potential workers, and the growing opportunities online to deliver education and training. “That's something which basically didn't exist, not in a serious way, even ten years ago. So, it's a huge opportunity.” Whether you are an employer, job seeker, educator or looking for career advancement, there is much to learn from this social media pioneer.
Most home care workers are women of color working more than one job, struggling to afford childcare, and doing difficult work without any prospects for advancement. It’s no wonder, then, that it’s hard to find and retain workers for these critically needed positions. Making matters worse is a competitive job market for entry level workers which means people can find less taxing positions for the same pay. That’s why today’s WorkforceRx guest, Mark Burns, is so pleased to be involved in California’s new $200 million Career Pathways program which is designed to increase wages, skill levels and career mobility for this workforce. As Executive Director of the San Francisco-based Homebridge home care agency and a key leader in the Career Pathways initiative, Burns is hoping to reach up to 250,000 Californians with paid training classes across the state. “Having any training available is fairly rare for this population, but having paid training is almost unheard of, so we're thrilled,” he tells Van Ton-Quinlivan, CEO of Futuro Health, which is contributing asynchronous training options to the effort. On a parallel track to Career Pathways, Burns is busy transitioning Homebridge to an employment model that offers progressive wage increases as workers gain skills, with an eye on professionalizing the occupation. “People know innately that they’re adding a great deal of value that is of a professional scale that helps with people's wellness and helps them stay stable in the community, but there’s no system of validation for that.” Don’t miss this chance for a detailed look at leading edge innovations in home care workforce development that could stabilize and improve access to care for some of the most vulnerable members of our communities.
“One of the things we’ve found is that the average U.S. job has seen 37% of its skills replaced in just the last five years,” says Matt Sigelman, one of the country’s leading labor market experts. That blistering pace of change begs the question of how workers and employers are going to acquire new skills on a such a rapid and continuing basis. That’s exactly the type of challenge Sigelman and his colleagues tackle at The Burning Glass Institute, a nonprofit research center that explores data for fresh insights and tools employers, workers, educators and policymakers can use to build mobility, opportunity and equity. One such tool is a brand-new Skills Compass developed with Coursera which enables multi-dimensional evaluation of the emerging skills that will yield the most value. But Sigelman cautions against focusing just on of-the-moment-skills in favor of a more balanced approach. “You need timely skills to get on the career ladder, but you're going to need timeless skills like critical thinking and collaboration to rise.” Join WorkforceRx host and Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan for a super informative scan of these and other key questions confronting the labor economy such as skills-based hiring, career mobility and the implications of increasingly powerful chat bots.
For those understandably concerned about the future of higher education, the optimism of today’s WorkforceRx guest Mark Milliron should serve as a salve. The new President and CEO of National University believes we’re entering an historic era of reinvention due to new tech and tools that foster innovation. “I just think we're going to be able to try, test and learn in ways we haven't seen in a long, long time. It’s going to be pretty exciting,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Milliron sees a future that will favor flexible educators focused on providing value to increasingly “non-traditional” students with complicated lives. That cohort is already a sweet spot for National University which was founded nearly fifty years ago to serve members of the military and is the largest graduate degree granting institution for diverse students in the country. “It's about offering diversified learning opportunities, allowing for short cycle education that ladders into degrees and offering a mix of on-ground hybrid and fully online to meet students where they are.” And with access to more data than ever before, Milliron believes educators will be able to determine what innovations work based on facts, “not based on who can tell the best story.” Don’t miss this expansive discussion packed with ideas about transforming work-study programs to boost healthcare workforce development, moving to a mastery-based learning system and the necessity of shifting to “whole human” education. “If you're serving adult learners, they're not leaving because they can't academically cut it. They're leaving because life happens or logistics get in the way.”
“My parents were feminists long before I even knew the term. My father used to verbalize that his daughters needed to be financially independent and this could only be achieved through education,” shares Futhi Mtoba, a global business leader who credits these groundbreaking attitudes in 1950’s South Africa with her considerable success. This personal background explains why she’s been involved in education and the empowerment of women throughout her career, including being a board member for the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. She is also Co-Convener of the Women Economic Assembly, a national initiative seeking improved access for women to government and private sector procurement, employment, housing and other economic essentials. It is a daunting challenge as half of working-age women are not even in the workforce and if they are, the jobs are typically low paid. There are also persistent problems with gender-based wage gaps and lack of representation in corporate leadership. Tune in as Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan looks at how one country is working to strengthen its economy and society by helping women get a fair shot at economic opportunity through asset ownership, education, and leadership training.
As a medical student at Johns Hopkins University ten years ago, Shiv Gaglani quickly realized it was time to shake up a century-old approach to medical education and make the experience more personalized and efficient. That was the spark for creating Osmosis, an online and mobile learning platform that he left med school to grow. The company, which was acquired last year by the European-based medical publisher Elsevier, has attracted millions of medical and allied health students to its learning system and short-form educational videos. “Osmosis has been designed around trying to make it as easy as possible for someone to access and consume content. We also push tailored content to people instead of relying on their willpower to come back to the system,” Gaglani tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Check out this engaging conversation about what’s changed in medical education, the qualities that health professions students will need to be successful in the future, and the potential impact of AI on learners and providers. You’ll also hear how educators are integrating Osmosis’ content into training, and why Shiv is returning to med school later this year.
“It's hard to bring what happens in the living room and the dining room into the boardroom,” says Paurvi Bhatt, board director of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers and corporate executive. "I don't think we can do that anymore." Put another way, most of us are providing care to a loved one, and being open about that with colleagues, she thinks, can create a culture of understanding that will increase employee wellbeing. In fact, she believes that trend has already begun. “Leaders at all levels are starting to be much more vocal and vulnerable in sharing what's happening with them. There isn't a feeling that the only way to succeed is by hiding that these parts of your life exist,” she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. In addition, companies have access to new employee benefit options designed to relieve some of the administrative burden of caregiving. “A beautiful set of things are coming up for employers to take a look at. It's a reimagining of what benefits can look like.” Despite this progress, daunting challenges remain to make caring for loved ones at home viable, which Bhatt analyzes with the keen eye of someone who built a career as a global health leader despite heavy family caregiving responsibilities of her own. Tune in for a wisdom drop on how to rebrand the role of caregivers, reinvigorate the home care workforce, provide ethnically adapted care and get the home truly ready for home care.
“One of the trends that we'll see in 2023 is a reimagining of benefits. You'll see more employers thinking about how they can meet an employee where they are so they feel valued,” says Dr. Angela Jackson, who is the embodiment of a future-focused leader in workforce development. Employers would also be wise to understand the lived realities of employees in order to address what Jackson has dubbed the “social determinants of work” such as childcare and transportation. As founder of the labor market intelligence firm Future Forward Strategies, Jackson is plugged-in to shifting worker demands that are shaped by COVID’s influence on how people perceive work-life balance, and fueled by the upper hand a tight labor market is giving them. As she explains to Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, for employers to succeed they need to be tuned into these new expectations. “During the pandemic, we saw more and more workers really enjoy having control over their time, even if they made the same amount or a little less. People are also looking for purpose.” Don’t miss this deeply informed look at what other trends will shape the labor market in 2023 including ‘talent as a service,’ women re-entering the workforce, VR-fueled innovations in training and other changes that may usher in a more equitable future of work.
Every day, nearly five million direct care workers support older adults and people with disabilities across the United States, and the critical need for this workforce is only increasing as the proportion of people over sixty-five continues to grow dramatically. Given an existing shortage of workers and a high turnover rate in the profession due to low pay, lack of training and poor management, the chances of meeting that need are low. Add in the unaffordability of these services and the difficulty many loved ones have navigating the system and it is a deeply troubling picture, according to our WorkforceRx guest Robert Espinoza, executive vice president for policy at PHI. “All of these barriers compound and create a system where it's going quickly, I think, from crisis to catastrophe,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. But while the problems are many, so are the potential solutions. Espinoza sees particular promise in several state and local initiatives including wage pass-through laws to boost worker pay, stronger training requirements and tapping into the undocumented immigrant population, which he sees as a major part of the answer. Be sure to listen to the end to learn about an innovative training program in San Francisco on which Futuro Health and PHI are collaborating, and Espinoza’s ideas for leveraging the relationship between family caregivers and direct care workers.
Even if all of the unemployed people in Connecticut took one of the 109,000 open positions in the state, there would still be thousands of jobs left unfilled. What that says to Mark Argosh, chair of the Governor’s Workforce Council, is the state needs to get more people off the sidelines. “We have to be able to increase the labor force participation rate in Connecticut, and what that means is especially focus on underserved populations that face significant barriers,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. That recognition has prompted investment in services such as childcare, transportation and supportive housing. But that’s just one element of a multi-pronged approach that includes building partnerships within industry sectors, consolidating training programs in higher ed and providing a central point of contact in state government on workforce issues. The state is also supporting one of the largest government-funded job training programs in the country and it recently won the largest award in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Good Jobs Challenge. “I think what this represents is an endorsement of the strategies and approach that we're taking to transform workforce development.” Tune in to this episode of WorkforceRx for a deep dive into best practices in workforce development at the state level, and learn how the non-profit Argosh leads, Social Venture Partners Connecticut, employs a “venture philanthropy” model to close opportunity gaps in the state.
There’s mounting skepticism about the value of higher education among prospective students and their parents, causing alarm among policymakers on the implications of this trend for the quality of the future U.S. workforce and economy. A continuing sharp decline in college enrollments is perhaps the key proof point, but there are many other symptoms and causes which Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan explores on this episode of WorkforceRx with Jon Marcus, higher education editor for The Hechinger Report. “I'd like to think that, now that enrollment drops have caused an existential crisis, we'll see colleges and universities finally taking steps they should have many years ago to stop hiring, stop building, stop spending, start innovating, and start using technology to work smarter,” says Marcus. There are some innovations he thinks are worth noting, rising in part from a new imperative to collaborate. They include dual admissions programs at 2-year and 4-year institutions and course sharing, which Marcus asserts could be a game changer especially for smaller schools. Don’t miss this deeply-informed scan of how higher ed is responding to a daunting list of challenges including dropout rates, student debt and demographic headwinds, and be sure to stay tuned to learn how a tiny change at one Florida university made a big improvement in retention.
As a new school year gets underway at colleges and universities around the country, it's a good time to take stock of where higher education finds itself after several very challenging years brought on by a massive public health crisis and unprecedented economic turbulence. On this episode of WorkforceRx, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan turns to veteran higher ed leader Dr. Marjorie Hass, President of the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), for insight. Hass counts an unusually high number of new presidents this year at CIC member institutions who will find themselves facing greater scrutiny from stakeholders as they navigate complex issues. “You have a lot of different constituencies who are able to be in touch with you and with each other almost 24-7. There is a lot of pressure to make decisions quickly and to make decisions in a transparent way.” Hass says these new leaders would also be wise to embrace continuous innovation in degree offerings, revenue streams and student recruitment, which she believes was a hallmark of colleges and universities who managed best during the pandemic. You won’t want to miss this wide-ranging look at the innovations and trends emerging in this uniquely challenging time for higher ed.
When it comes to the impact of artificial intelligence on the workforce, there is still a major split between those who worry about “robots” replacing workers, and those who think employees will benefit from AI if it is harnessed the right way. On this episode of WorkforceRx, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan asks one of the world’s leading experts in the field, Dr. Tom Mitchell of Carnegie Mellon University, to weigh in on the debate. “The big determinant of how the future of work is going to play out is how we develop these technologies, and how we choose to adopt them. Do we adopt computers as assistants that allow people to do their job better, or do we use them to automate the task? The future is really ours to define.” Mitchell is currently updating a 2017 U.S. National Academy study on AI and the workforce at the request of Congress, and provides us with a peek into what has changed in the intervening years with regard to remote work, online learning, self-driving cars and the speed with which the field of AI itself is changing. Don’t miss this penetrating look at one of the most disruptive technologies of our time.
There’s growing interest in the integration of oral healthcare with medical care, and there’s good reason: about 30 million Americans who visit their dentist annually do not have similar contact with a primary care provider. Our guest on this episode of WorkforceRx, Dr. Nader Nadershahi, says this presents a tremendous opportunity for an additional way to identify problems such as diabetes and heart disease in patients. “The mouth is the window to the rest of your body,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. “The more we bring providers together and put the patient at the center of the conversation to get them the care and the access they need, it's going to help not only improve healthcare outcomes, but lower our costs of healthcare delivery.” This collaboration will require shifts in how oral healthcare providers are educated, and Nadershahi will have a significant influence on that as Chair of the Board of the American Dental Education Association and Dean of The University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry. Tune into to find out more about the emerging possibilities of interprofessional practice, the workforce challenges in the field of dentistry, and the future of oral healthcare education.
There’s growing interest in the integration of oral healthcare with medical care, and there’s good reason: about 30 million Americans who visit their dentist annually do not have similar contact with a primary care provider. Our guest on this episode of WorkforceRx, Dr. Nader Nadershahi, says this presents a tremendous opportunity for an additional way to identify problems such as diabetes and heart disease in patients. “The mouth is the window to the rest of your body,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. “The more we bring providers together and put the patient at the center of the conversation to get them the care and the access they need, it's going to help not only improve healthcare outcomes, but lower our costs of healthcare delivery.” This collaboration will require shifts in how oral healthcare providers are educated, and Nadershahi will have a significant influence on that as Chair of the Board of the American Dental Education Association and Dean of The University of the Pacific Arthur A. Dugoni School of Dentistry. Tune into to find out more about the emerging possibilities of interprofessional practice, the workforce challenges in the field of dentistry, and the future of oral healthcare education.
What would veteran workforce training leader Jane Oates do to improve the hiring system if she had a magic wand? “I would take away all of the buts, as in ‘I would hire you, but you don’t have experience, but you have a disability, but you’re too old.’” It will not only help achieve equal access to employment, she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, but right now employers could really use a bigger talent pool. “We cannot be the country we are meant to be with a 61% labor market participation rate.” After many years in government service, capped with being Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training in the Obama administration, she’s currently leading WorkingNation, a non-profit focused on educating the public and policymakers about achievable solutions to prepare workers for the future. Among its current initiatives are boosting the employment prospects of veterans, the disabled and single mothers. Partnerships are key to this work, and she and Van will be appearing on a panel together on August 22, 2022 at ASAE: The Center for Association Leadership conference in Nashville to underscore the role associations can play in bringing employers and workforce development stakeholders together. This episode of WorkforceRx is full of interesting ideas and angles to consider for those concerned about closing the troubling gap between job openings and available workers.
From building a model HIV/AIDS program in Iran to creating a long-distance program to train doctors in war-torn Syria, Dr. Kamiar Alaei has overcome daunting obstacles to make a broad impact on global health. On this inspiring episode of WorkforceRx he shares lessons learned both in the trenches of public health and the corridors of Harvard, Oxford and other top universities with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Chief among them is the importance of collaboration, which he says requires knowing your audience and being willing to do a ‘dance with partners.’ “I call it a river strategy. In nature, there is no river that goes straight. So, we try to be flexible, while being consistent. In this way, we were able to engage a lot of those who were initially against our initiatives.” The approach allowed him to navigate sensitive religious and cultural barriers in the Middle East, but it also applies to building partnerships in the current federally-funded effort he is leading in California to reshape education for the public health IT workforce, one of only ten such programs in the nation. In fact, one of his partners in that innovative consortium is Futuro Health. Don’t miss this wisdom drop on effective strategies for strengthening public health and the education programs that sustain it from the founding director of the Global Institute for Health and Human Rights, and an internationally celebrated health hero.
Johnathan Holifield spent many years deeply involved in neighborhood and community development work without really moving the needle until he discovered the game-changing nature of the innovation economy. “The stuff we were doing was good work, but we were focused on largely inelastic career opportunities versus what you find in the tech sector and innovation economy, which are elastic opportunities that really give you social and economic mobility.” As senior vice president of New Economies at Bitwise Industries, he’s now in a position to help what he calls disconnected populations gain access to the best options for economic advancement, and do so on an increasingly national scale. Bitwise, which started in Fresno, California in 2013, helps marginalized communities obtain the skills and resources necessary to access opportunities in the tech industry. Apprenticeships are key to its model and Bitwise is now the largest tech apprenticeship provider in the United States. Check out this illuminating episode of WorkforceRx as Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan explores how Bitwise is bringing its successful formula of workforce development, technology consulting and creating great community spaces to seven states and counting.
Obstacles - from language proficiency to digital literacy to family care - make it difficult for adults to get on, and stay on, an education path towards a career they desire. Our guest on this episode of WorkforceRx, Jacque Burandt, spent decades at University Health System in San Antonio, Texas, breaking down those barriers and is here to share her recipe for creating and sustaining successful upskilling and reskilling programs. As she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, first and foremost is partnering with community organizations. Very few people have the budget to invest in lots of expensive training so employers should seek out groups that can help them out, says Burandt, who is now president of Award-Winning Results, a firm that focuses on transforming organizations through people development and gaining recognition for employees. A key benefit to these collaborations is that the community partner can often help with the “wraparound” services that make it easier for employees to attend classes. Tune in for many more tips and strategies in this wisdom drop from Jacque about getting the buy-in of supervisors, investing in awareness of the offerings, and the importance of celebrating successes so that building your own internal talent pipeline is no longer just a pipe dream.
As the unprecedented misalignment in the U.S. labor market between employers and workers continues, it’s a good time to take a look at the extensive federal infrastructure in place to support people seeking jobs and skills. Millions of Americans access 2,400 American Job Centers located throughout the country and its territories every year, which are powered by a network of 500 Workforce Development Boards. On today’s episode of WorkforceRx, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan sits down with Ron Painter, CEO of the National Association of Workforce Boards, to explore the vital role they play in advancing economic opportunity. “Workforce Boards bring together the players you need in that region -- housing, transportation, economic development, community-based organizations, faith-based organizations -- that's a unique mix wherever you are. There's a whole lot that makes that equation work.” Check out this informative discussion to learn how communities are leveraging this network to bring about economic opportunity, why local Boards need more flexibility, and to understand why Painter is optimistic about meeting the unprecedented challenges facing employers and workers.
Van Ton-Quinlivan, CEO of Futuro Health and host of the show, is also author of the best-selling book, WorkforceRx: Agile and Inclusive Strategies for Employers, Educators and Workers in Unsettled Times. In this episode, Van welcomes leading workforce and economic development experts to discuss the strategies and insights from Chapters Nine and Ten that resonated most with them. Check out their lively discussion about freeing and sharing data within an organization to guide improvements; building infrastructure to help gig workers thrive; the role of labor unions in scaling solutions to workforce challenges; adopting a shared ownership model to overcome inequality in income and assets, and much more from this powerful new playbook for the future of work. Joining Van are: Omid Pourzanjani, Superintendent and President of San Joaquin Delta College; Anthony Dalton, Vice President & Chief Data Scientist at Futuro Health; Kathy Booth, Project Director at WESTED; Ann Volk, Senior Director at Alvarez & Marsal; Sara Skvirsky, Research Director at the Institute for the Future; Dave Regan, President of SEIU-UHW; Howard Brodsky, CEO of CCA Global and Lenny Mendonca, Former Chief Economic and Business Advisor for the State of California.
What do all of the changes in healthcare wrought by the pandemic mean for the future healthcare workforce? On today’s episode of WorkforceRx, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan draws out thoughtful answers from someone with a broad and deep view of the healthcare system. Dr. Imelda Dacones has been confronted with all of these changes -- many of which were brewing before the pandemic -- over decades as a physician and senior leader at large healthcare organizations in Oregon and Washington. She’s also a nationally recognized leader in healthcare delivery innovation, addressing social determinants of health, and the health impacts of climate change, among other issues. Her prescription for change? Reimagine the healthcare team, reengineer the patient visit, and reinvigorate providers. “We need to reinvent care altogether for the patients we serve but also for ourselves as providers, because there just are not going to be enough nurses, doctors and medical assistants coming into the future.” Don’t miss this comprehensive look at the challenges and opportunities in healthcare from integrating with community organizations to leveraging home care to keeping up with shifting skillsets. Find out, too, about the Quadruple Aim and how the healthcare industry can work to reduce its waste footprint in light of climate change.
What do all of the changes in healthcare wrought by the pandemic mean for the future healthcare workforce? On today’s episode of WorkforceRx, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan draws out thoughtful answers from someone with a broad and deep view of the healthcare system. Dr. Imelda Dacones has been confronted with all of these changes -- many of which were brewing before the pandemic -- over decades as a physician and senior leader at large healthcare organizations in Oregon and Washington. She’s also a nationally recognized leader in healthcare delivery innovation, addressing social determinants of health, and the health impacts of climate change, among other issues. Her prescription for change? Reimagine the healthcare team, reengineer the patient visit, and reinvigorate providers. “We need to reinvent care altogether for the patients we serve but also for ourselves as providers, because there just are not going to be enough nurses, doctors and medical assistants coming into the future.” Don’t miss this comprehensive look at the challenges and opportunities in healthcare from integrating with community organizations to leveraging home care to keeping up with shifting skillsets. Find out, too, about the Quadruple Aim and how the healthcare industry can work to reduce its waste footprint in light of climate change.
“I did not ever think of private equity as a career option for me,” admits Dr. Adaeze Enekwechi, and not only because she saw it as a male-dominated profession. The former head of health at the Office of Management and Budget under President Obama and Ph.D. in health management expected to make a difference through public policy. But as an Operating Partner at Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe, she’s having an impact from a different perch. “We look at assets or companies to build that would make a meaningful contribution in whatever specific healthcare ecosystem we're interested in investing in,” she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. “Our philosophy is not to just put money towards something and collect. We’re looking for opportunities to build something meaningful.” One current example is finding solutions to the nursing shortage and the painful budget crunch hospitals are enduring to pay for traveling staff. Investing in contingency staffing companies would earn a return, she says, but does nothing to solve the problem. A more useful target, she says, is leveraging technology to optimize the existing workforce. Adaeze shares examples of other issues she’s looking at through a private equity lens including racial inequities in care, social determinants of health, and what the training needs are as more care is being provided in the home. Check out this thoughtful episode of WorkforceRx in which you’ll also find out why this nationally respected healthcare leader thinks retail giants like Walmart and CVS should be applauded, and which two healthcare issues you should keep a close eye on in the coming months.
“While we believe that education is a great equalizer, in fact, it is not. There are structural inequalities in place that hold back the most talented low-income and minority youth,” says Dr. Jeff Strohl, whose research at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce focuses on equity and socio-economic differentials in outcomes. And that’s not all he has to share with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan on the subject of equity in education, training and the labor market as you’ll hear in this revealing episode of WorkforceRx. Improving race and gender inequities, he says, requires more investments in school-based counseling and doing a better job at “expectational formation” in underrepresented communities. “Young people need better examples about what the workplace looks like so people can find an interest in different fields because if you didn't grow up in a science-based home, why would you be interested in STEM?” Strohl pinpoints other steps to create a stronger, more inclusive workforce including more agility by higher education in meeting employer needs, putting training on a level playing field with education, enhancing work-based learning opportunities, addressing inherent biases in higher education and improving transparency in the short-term credential space. Don’t miss this chance to hear the deeply-informed perspective of a key resource for stakeholders and policymakers alike.
Van Ton-Quinlivan, CEO of Futuro Health and host of the show, is also author of the new best-selling book, WorkforceRx: Agile and Inclusive Strategies for Employers, Educators and Workers in Unsettled Times. In this episode, Van welcomes leading workforce and economic development experts to discuss the strategies and insights from Chapters Seven and Eight that resonated most with them. Check out their lively discussion about how to stop pitting diversity against workforce quality; integrating recruitment, screening and training; making upskilling the new norm; taking a “credential-as-you-go” approach and much more from this powerful new playbook for the future of work.
Joining Van are: Holly Zanville, Co-Director of Program on Skills, Credentials and Workforce Policy at the George Washington Institute of Public Policy; John Brauer, Executive Director for Workforce & Economic Development at the California Labor Federation; Shannon Lucas and Tracey Lovejoy, Co-Chief Executive Officers of Catalyst Constellation; Paul Granillo, President & CEO, Inland Empire Economic Partnership; Linda Wah, Trustee, Pasadena City College; Gustavo Herrera, CEO of Arts for LA.
The pandemic brought a lot of new stressors for physicians, but even before COVID, there were major trends impacting doctors including burnout, adjusting to new technologies, and accommodating new roles for mid-level providers. On this episode of WorkforceRx, Laurie McGraw of the American Medical Association provides a close look at the challenges facing physicians and the support they need to overcome them. As the AMA’s senior vice president of Health Solutions, McGraw, who has a deep background in health IT, has a special focus on helping physicians integrate new technology into clinical practice. “Physicians love innovation, but if new technologies are not implemented well, it only leads to a negative cycle of more burden and more disruption which is a real problem in healthcare today.” Check out this illuminating conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan that explores the best ways to augment the physician workforce to meet growing demand for care, harnessing opportunities in digital health, and how -- with her podcast Inspiring Women and other efforts -- McGraw is encouraging women to take on leadership roles in healthcare and beyond.
You might think improving healthcare quality is largely in the hands of the clinicians providing the care, but much of this challenging work is actually done behind the scenes by professionals who focus on quality indicators. On this episode of WorkforceRx, we get an inside look at this critically important workforce from Stephanie Mercado, CEO and Executive Director of the National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ). Since assuming the role eight years ago, she has focused on standardizing competencies for the profession and increasing awareness of its value. “Healthcare needs problem solvers and that's what people who work in quality do. They understand systems, processes, and structure, they have the toolkit for quality, and they have that spirit of improvement.” That’s particularly important right now, Mercado says, because key quality metrics have slipped during the pandemic. Check out this revealing conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan to learn about the certifications NAHQ offers, the qualities that help people succeed in this overlooked but promising career track, and what the future holds for quality professionals as healthcare challenges mount.
The rapidly growing presence of digital technologies in healthcare — from telemedicine, to artificial intelligence, to at-home monitoring devices — is creating demand for a skilled workforce to maximize their potential. It is also accelerating the need for common standards to ensure the compatibility and integration of all of this tech. On this episode of WorkforceRx, we turn to Gora Datta who is perfectly positioned to sort through the current and future implications of these opportunities and challenges. Gora is an internationally acknowledged expert on digital health, a key player in setting technical standards for the industry, and he’s also involved in healthcare technology workforce initiatives. Join Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan and Gora Datta as they explore what skills are needed for workers in this space, how home-based care will revolutionize the healthcare industry, and the role robots and drones may play in this new regime. As a bonus, you’ll get a fascinating look at the historical implications of tech standards including the width of railroad tracks, the fittings on fire hydrants and the frequencies for Wi-Fi systems.
Van Ton-Quinlivan, CEO of Futuro Health and host of the show, is also author of the new best-selling book, WorkforceRx: Agile and Inclusive Strategies for Employers, Educators and Workers in Unsettled Times. In this episode, Van welcomes some of the nation’s leading workforce development experts to discuss the strategies and insights from Chapters Five and Six that resonated most with them. Check out their lively discussion about building consortiums of industry players and educators to develop meaningful career pathways, redesigning the community college system, new approaches to credentialing, how to scale up innovations and much more from this powerful new playbook for the future of work. Joining the host are: Chauncy Lennon, Vice President, Lumina Foundation; Earl Buford, Chief Executive Officer, Council on Adult Experiential Learning; Rock Pfotenhauer, Chair, Bay Area Community College Consortium; Amrit Ahluwalia, Editor, Evolllution; Jim Caldwell, Chief Executive Officer, Workforce Incubator; Amy Schulz, Dean, Sierra College; and Steve Wright, ICT Statewide Director, California Community Colleges.
The practice of impact investing -- also known as socially responsible investing – has been in place in the U.S. for decades, but more recently, a subset of that field has focused on improving economic mobility. In this episode of WorkforceRx, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan is joined by Tracy Palandjian, CEO of Social Finance, who is focused on reimagining the role of the capital markets in enabling economic progress. “Our societal challenges are so vast, they require more than what philanthropy and the government can give. So, increasingly, people are asking the question, "What is the role of investors in driving social change?" Tune in to learn about a new way to fund education and training called Career Impact Bonds, collaborations at the state level to support workforce development in key industries, and how these efforts are targeted at people who face significant barriers to workforce participation. This is a great opportunity to learn about innovative alternatives for funding a critical need as labor shortages continue to challenge the U.S. economy.
Van Ton-Quinlivan, CEO of Futuro Health and host of the show, is also author of the new best-selling book, WorkforceRx: Agile and Inclusive Strategies for Employers, Educators and Workers in Unsettled Times. In this episode, Van welcomes some of the nation’s leading workforce development experts to discuss which strategies and insights from Chapters Three and Four resonated most with them.Check out their lively discussion about giving employers a role in shaping curriculum, making education and training more affordable and flexible, finding an ecosystem of willing partners and much more from this powerful new playbook for the future of work.
Joining Van are: Rachel Unruh, Chief of External Affairs with the National Skills Coalition; Amy Wallace, former Deputy Director at the California Workforce Development Board; Debra Jones & Lynn Shaw, former system leaders with the California Community Colleges; Flannery Hauck, Director with SEIU-UHW; Kai Drekmeier, Chief Development Officer with Inside Track; Fred Freedman, Chief Executive Officer of Pima Medical Institute; and Katie Nielson, Chief Education Officer of EnGen.
As U.S. employers continue to struggle to find workers, they may want to turn their attention to populations who have the skills they need but lack proficiency in English. This describes many people in immigrant and refugee populations who are currently overlooked by employers and make up part of what is called the “hidden workforce.” On this episode of WorkforceRx, Katie Nielson, PhD, joins Futuro Health CEO Van Ton Quinlivan to describe how she works with employers to tap the potential of this talent pool. Nielson has a growing sense of urgency on this issue due to the fact that by 2030, every baby boomer will have reached retirement age and 97% of net workforce growth will be immigrants and their children. “The biggest barrier to integration in general and, definitely to promotion and advancement in the workforce, is English skills,” she says. “If we think about English as something that we can do to help upskill our workforce, then we’ll be able to get those learners not just the English skills but also the workforce skills that they need to succeed.” Tune in to learn about Nielson’s blend of tech-enabled study and interaction, the wisdom of taking a “backwards design” approach, and how workplace-based language programs can help employers achieve goals around diversity, equity and inclusion.
Van Ton-Quinlivan, CEO of Futuro Health and host of this podcast series, is also author of the new best-selling book, WorkforceRx: Agile and Inclusive Strategies for Employers, Educators and Workers in Unsettled Times. This episode takes you to one of several live panel sessions held to celebrate the launch of the book. Van welcomes some of the nation’s leading workforce development experts to discuss what strategies and insights from Chapters One and Two resonated most with them, and what they would do differently after reading the book. Check out this insightful discussion about matching people with the right skills at the right time, regionalization of higher education, aggregating the demand for labor, and much more from this powerful new playbook for the future of work.
Joining Van are: Ophelia Basgal, Chair of the Board of Trustees, San Francisco Foundation; Ann Randazzo, retired Executive Director, Center For Energy Workforce Development; Brenda Curiel, Managing Director, Center For Corporate Innovation; Beth Cobert, Chief Operating Officer, Markle Foundation; Tom Cohenno, Principal, Applied Learning Science; David Gatewood, Dean, Shasta College and Debra Nankivell, Chief Executive Officer, Fresno Business Council.
The combination of a unique economic moment and major new funding out of Washington is creating an opportunity to rethink workforce development policies and programs. But will the tough questions be asked that will lead to a significant reshaping of the nation’s approach? Maria Flynn, president and CEO of Jobs for the Future, is hopeful, but is not yet seeing the “blue sky redesign” discussion she thinks is necessary. “We are largely operating public systems that were designed for a different era. A lot of the conversations now are about funding but are not questioning those underlying assumptions of 'are these the systems that we need for today and the future'? My answer to that is largely no,” says Flynn. There’s a lot to learn in this probing conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan about transforming American education and workforce systems, the growing corporate role in education, helping employers deliver on diversity, strategies to boost innovation, taking a regional approach to economic development and much more.
It’s estimated there are one million unique credentials in the United States when you count all of the degrees, certificates, licenses, badges, and apprenticeships offered. But how are employers, educators and learners supposed to determine their validity and whether they might actually help someone advance economically? “It’s our job to make sure information about credentials is accessible in a web-based format and comparable so employers and others can make their own determinations about what’s valid for their purposes,” says Scott Cheney, CEO of the nonprofit Credential Engine. One upside of having a robust, transparent basis for comparison of credentials might be the erosion of entrenched biases toward the value of degrees over other qualifications. “It might be that a really good apprenticeship or an industry license is what you need in order to advance your own preferences and goals.” As he explains to Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, Cheney thinks more and better data on credentials will also enable customized career pathways and make it easier to see the fundamental value a person brings despite restrictions they may face in access to education. This episode of WorkforceRx is a great opportunity to learn more about this increasingly important area of education and employment and how it might empower learners and job seekers from all backgrounds.
If you’re wondering why there are ten million unfilled jobs in the U.S. despite having an unemployment rate above pre-pandemic levels, Ryan Craig has part of the answer: traditional higher education is too expensive and can’t keep up with changes in the labor market leaving millions of Americans in need of other ways to obtain the skills that will lead to good jobs. Craig, a prominent investor and thought leader, captures the frictions impeding learners and employers — and offers solutions for them — in both his book A New U: Faster + Cheaper Alternatives to College, and in regular columns for Forbes and other leading publications. But he’s not just writing about these issues. Through his firm Achieve Partners, Craig is working to create modern apprenticeships facilitated by intermediaries between the education and employment sectors. “If you can fast forward a decade and imagine dozens of new apprenticeship pathways emerging in tech and healthcare, I believe we’ll have a very different view of socioeconomic mobility and the American dream.” Join Craig and Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan for a provocative discussion about learning and earning that touches on last mile solutions for students, a GPS for human capital development, “talent as a service” and innovative companies on which to keep an eye.
If you want proof of how the pandemic has taken a toll on the healthcare workforce, look no further than a recent national poll showing that nearly 30% of nurses, doctors, and allied professionals might leave their profession within the next year. Daniel Bustillo, whose work as executive director of the Healthcare Career Advancement Program (H-CAP) gives him a national perspective, thinks that number might even go higher. This sobering reality makes organizations like his, which promote innovation and quality in healthcare career education, more important than ever. “Our work is really focused at the intersection of skills attainment, racial and gender equity, and job quality,” says Bustillo. Key to that work is creating opportunities for career mobility, which, as he explains to Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, can be achieved through a blend of apprenticeships, effective mentorship, and robust supportive services. Check out this illuminating conversation to learn more about reimagining workforce development, a historic opportunity to fund home and community-based services, and H-CAP’s new Center for Advancing Racial Equity and Job Quality in Long-Term Care.
The nation’s governors have their hands full navigating an uneven economic recovery and turbulent labor market. Fortunately, they can draw on the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices to help guide their decision making. “Governors are focused on getting people safely back to work and filling jobs that are open right now and looking for ways to get people quickly skilled up for new jobs if that’s what they need. They’re also looking at how they can build on existing efforts to develop career pathways that lead to good jobs in the longer term,” says Rachael Stephens, director of the Center’s Workforce Development and Economic Policy Program. Those efforts include the NGA’s Workforce Innovation Network which, as Stephens tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, is sparking creative solutions in states from Vermont to Alabama. Check out this episode for an informative scan of innovative approaches to today’s complex economic challenges that include supporting a growing on-demand workforce and improving hiring practices to create a more equitable job market.
As more and more people acquire skills and credentials outside of structured degree programs, employers are looking for credible ways to assess what potential employees have learned. One increasingly popular and agile approach to meeting this need is digital badging, and in this episode of WorkforceRx you can learn all about it from one of the pioneers in the space, Wayne Skipper, the founder and CEO of Concentric Sky, makers of Badgr http://www.badgr.com. Skipper likens digital badges to mini-transcripts with supporting evidence that is independently verifiable by third parties. “Digital badges allow institutions, which are now measuring student success through the lens of job placement, do a better job of helping employers understand what is meant by a credential and what proficiencies a learner who goes through their program can demonstrate.” As co-founder of the Open Skills Network, Skipper is also behind efforts to provide meaningful tools to reduce the bias that can result if only machine learning is involved in assessing proficiencies. Join host Van Ton-Quinlivan for this fascinating discussion about the potential threats and opportunities for educational institutions and employers as the shift to skills-based hiring continues to gain momentum.
“We’ve got 200 million Americans who are not benefiting from what we think of as the most important engine of growth in our economy – innovation,” says Chad Evans, executive vice president and secretary to the board at the Council on Competitiveness. That reality helped spark creation of the Council’s National Commission on Innovation and Competitiveness Frontiers which has already developed 50 recommendations to put in place the talent, capital and infrastructure necessary to increase U.S. innovation capacity. Small steps are not in the mix. In fact, the Commission is calling for a 10x improvement in innovation leadership, the pace of innovation, and the number and diversity of Americans engaged in innovation, among other goals. Check out this expansive discussion with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan to learn how broadband access, AI, higher education and hiring practices fit into the strategy, and how the U.S. can better position itself as a global innovation leader.
Presiding over an online platform with 82 million learners and hundreds of millions of course enrollments gives Jeff Maggioncalda a unique view of what’s happening around the world in higher education and training. What he’s seeing is growth and opportunity. The Coursera CEO says the number of people accessing its catalog of thousands of courses and certificate programs from top universities and corporations nearly doubled in the pandemic, with women driving up the numbers and consuming STEM content at an increasing rate. Coursera’s newly released Global Skills Report, based on data from 100 countries, shows the most sought-after skills are in business, technology and data. But the most important development coming out of this challenging year, he says, is that access to learning and jobs is becoming much less dependent on location. “We’ve seen that online learning allows anyone, anywhere to have access to high-quality learning. I think remote work, spurred on by the pandemic and digital jobs, will allow almost anyone, anywhere to have a range of job opportunities that they would never have had.” Maggioncalda is also encouraged by the growing power of certificate programs to unlock access to degrees and careers, and the creative institutional collaborations enabled by Coursera’s content and commitment to partnerships. You won’t want to miss this lively conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan packed with insights into the increasingly accessible, affordable and stackable world of upskilling and education.
Finding qualified workers has become a chronic and deeply concerning struggle for U.S. employers, but as our guest on this episode of WorkforceRx sees it, this is a self-inflicted problem. Byron Auguste, a PhD economist and former White House economic policy official, says the skilled workers are there but are routinely screened out of the applicant pool by hiring processes that only consider those with college degrees. “When you exclude people who don’t have a bachelor’s degree, you’re excluding almost 70 percent of African-Americans, 80 percent of Latino and Latina workers, and almost 80 percent of rural Americans of all races,” he says. That’s why the non-profit he co-founded and leads, Opportunity@Work, is asking employers to dip into the overlooked talent pool of the 70 million Americans who are Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STARs). “This is the golden age of new ways to learn new skills, and yet you have these very old, backward-looking bases for hiring. We need to have hiring catch up to learning.” Check out this compelling and thought-provoking conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan on transitioning from a pedigree-based to skills-based approach to hiring.
“I think we have a moment in this new decade we are in to start fresh when it comes to how we build our economies and build our communities and build our society,” says Shalin Jyotishi, senior policy analyst at New America. An important part of this fresh start is to further connect workforce development with the nation’s R&D and doing so beyond the nation’s tech corridors. Jyotishi says universities and community colleges have a role to play, but so do faith-based organizations, unions and state governments. A self-described public interest technologist, he counsels against being afraid of the rise in automation in favor of seeing people as the ultimate arbiters of how technology is applied. Join Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan for this insightful exploration of emerging ideas in education, training, tech and public policy that could reshape our economy and society for the better.
As signs of economic recovery in the U.S. continue to build, some experts are predicting a “jobless recovery,” while others are more optimistic about job growth. Will hard hit sectors bounce back? What changes do we need in job training and education to spur a post-pandemic economy? For answers to these and related questions, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan turns to Stuart Andreason on this episode of WorkforceRx. As director of the Center for Workforce and Economic Opportunity at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Andreason tracks changes in the economy to determine what skills workers and businesses need to be successful. This research also informs policies and programs to help people succeed in the labor market, especially low-and moderate-income workers. “What we strive to be is a bridge between the research and the real world. We want to learn from what people are doing in workforce development and bring promising practices back to the research that we’re doing to hopefully learn from and maybe find ways to commit some support to those practices.” He and his Fed colleagues around the country have also developed tools to help people research job opportunities that do not require a degree and discover options for career mobility based on their skills.
Dr. Sunita Mutha thinks if health care providers consistently asked themselves one question, it would lead to reducing health disparities based on race, income and other factors: “Who does this advantage, and who does this disadvantage?” In her extensive research at the intersection of health disparities and quality improvement, she’s come to understand there are predictable things providers do that influence inequities in care. Looking at the current COVID vaccine rollout provides a fresh example. “If your main strategy is to reach out to patients electronically, it leaves out people who don’t have online access, who might be monolingual, who might be elderly and isolated. You could have predicted who you would leave out by the strategies you chose to use.” As director of Healthforce Center at the University of California San Francisco, Mutha works with organizations nationwide to reduce disparities and build a culturally-competent workforce, but also to address a wide range of other challenges in healthcare, from the impact of electronic health records to nurse staffing ratios. As she explains to Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan in this episode of WorkforceRx, training emerging leaders is another special focus at Healthforce Center. “They are the glue that keeps an organization functioning and effective. They mobilize the frontline teams. So, in our training we try to instill in them both confidence and skills so they can be really effective.” Check out this episode for an expert view of current and future workforce challenges in healthcare, and the role of research and capacity-building to meet them.
What if there was something business owners could do to boost employee retention 65%, increase worker loyalty and perfectly align company and employee goals? Oh, and by the way, give people a sense of hope and increase their wealth at the same time? Well, according to Howard Brodsky, that “something” is using a shared ownership model. Brodsky, a globally recognized pioneer in cooperatives, co-founded and leads CCA Global Partners, one of the largest retail companies in America serving over one million family businesses. The profitable $12 billion organization is the parent company for 14 other businesses in flooring, carpeting, lighting and other sectors, including child care. In this revealing conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, Brodsky describes creating a new economic environment where instead of subsidies to repair the damage caused by chronically low wages, there is shared ownership and prosperity. “I think there has to be more distribution of wealth at the base level, not distribution after somebody makes a fortune and they decide where they want to give money to. People need opportunity, not subsidies.” Brodsky says the model is much more resilient in tough economic times, too. With an estimated 25-30 percent of family businesses failing in the U.S. during the pandemic, the closure rate among CCA Global’s members is only 1- 2 percent. This is a conversation that will leave you thinking.
“We know from history that technology both creates and destroys jobs, and we don’t know what will happen this time around,” says Jamie Merisotis, author of the new book Human Work in the Age of Machines, “but I do think we should be more interested in the work that humans can do, because that is clearly something we can control by better preparing people for that human work.” That preparation needs to focus on nurturing “foundational human capabilities” that set us apart from machines – compassion, empathy, ethics and creativity to name a few. As he reveals in his book, Merisotis believes the end result can be a collaborative relationship between workers and technology. As President and CEO of Lumina Foundation, Merisotis has been a driving force in increasing access to post-secondary education not only for its economic benefits but because of the role education plays in cultivating the critical thinking essential to a functioning democratic society. Check out this revealing conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan about rethinking how we can restructure education, work and benefits to better meet the challenges and opportunities upon us.
For someone interested in the interplay of technology and healthcare, the timing has always been right for Dr. Ashwini Davison. Implementation of Electronic Health Records was just starting to take off when she was an internal medicine resident at Johns Hopkins a little over a decade ago. As the adoption of EHRs and digital health applications rose, so did the potential for big data as a tool to advance medicine. Opportunities opened for her to help healthcare companies analyze data to enhance efficiency and improve patient outcomes. “My career naturally progressed to being at the cutting edge of the ‘next big thing’ whether that be clinical informatics or, subsequently, online education and precision medicine.” She’s now at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Medicine and the School of Public Health creating learning programs and opportunities for students at the intersection of healthcare, technology, education and research. If you’ve wondered how AI, precision medicine, cloud computing and other innovations are impacting patients, you’ll want to check out this dynamic conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. You’ll also learn about a collaboration between Johns Hopkins, Futuro Health and Coursera to create a new entry level path into health IT careers, how virtual reality and mobile technology is applied to healthcare, and what she describes as the “challenging, exhilarating and rewarding” experience of helping professors and students successfully manage the abrupt transition to online learning made necessary by COVID.
“We want to empower every citizen to be able to make a decision about how they want to invest in themselves and the kind of career they want,” says Dr. Soon Joo Gog, Chief Futurist at SkillsFuture SG in Singapore’s Ministry of Education. That’s obviously an ambitious goal, but this small city-state has a reputation for pioneering new approaches to building a skills ecosystem. To achieve it, the government gives every citizen 25 years of age and older $1,000 in credits toward education and skills training. That jumps to $1,500 in credits once you reach 40. The credits belong to the person, not an employer, making them portable throughout their life. She describes SkillsFuture, where she is also Chief Skills Officer and Chief Research Officer, as a national movement that later developed into a government agency offering job skills insights for individuals, businesses, education and training partners, and policymakers. One of her most important strategies is engaging with companies considered innovative to find out how their use of technology changes worker skills over time so SkillsFuture SG can work with educators to align training programs with future labor needs. Check out this fascinating conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan and one of the world’s leading workforce innovators to learn about the “trinity of partners” essential to her work, and the role smart dustbins are playing in Singapore’s high-tech, high-skill economy.
Spurred by heightened activism in 2020 against persistent racism in the U.S., many business leaders are engaged in a reckoning of their own policies, behaviors and corporate culture to determine how those might be contributing to systemic inequity and exclusion. Marsha Sampson Johnson, a leading diversity advocate and veteran corporate leader, has advice for those undertaking this work. “Diversity and inclusion can never just be a program. It can never be a department. If it is not incorporated into every aspect of the organization, it will never be successful.” Sampson Johnson, a retired senior executive from Fortune 200 energy giant Southern Company, has had an extraordinary career as an executive, mentor, writer and international speaker. In this trenchant conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, she shares insights gained from decades of providing leadership in HR, Talent Management and Diversity, discusses the impact of the pandemic on women in the workforce, and touches on the value of leadership development programs such as those sponsored by the International Women’s Forum where she spent many years as a Global Director.
As a longtime observer of the Washington political scene and a “go-to” expert on workforce and education policy issues, Andy Van Kleunen thinks that despite the country’s deep political divisions, it’s possible to make generation-defining investments in education and training to spur major employment growth. “There’s not a lot of partisan divide on investing in the retraining of somebody who’s been laid off and now has to look for a new occupation. We’re talking about 80 to 90 percent approval for greater public investments in those kinds of efforts.” Drawing on lessons learned from previous recovery efforts, Van Kleunen believes more needs to be done this time to make sure economic gains are inclusive from a racial and socio-economic standpoint. The organization he leads, National Skills Coalition, also urges policymakers to follow what they have found to be the most effective formula for increasing skills and growing jobs: let localities and states in the nation’s 300-400 regional economies bring stakeholders together to determine where investments should be made. In this timely conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, Van Kleunen taps into the knowledge gained from his national network of business, education and labor leaders to share the most effective formulas for economic development in this unique political moment.
Workers are showing the strains of social isolation, disrupted work and family routines, and sustained anxiety for personal safety — all induced by the pandemic. Fortunately, employers are taking note according to Eva Sage-Gavin, a former Fortune 500 executive who now advises C-suite leaders on talent strategy for Accenture. Sage-Gavin says employers are realizing they need to take a “whole human” approach to HR to navigate through this crisis of human resilience, and address employee needs for connection, relationship, and purpose if they are going to keep their workforce productive. In this revealing episode of WorkforceRx, Sage-Gavin and Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan – who first met a decade ago serving on President Obama’s Skills for America’s Future initiative – discuss a new global partnership to connect displaced workers to jobs, the worrisome “she-cession” as women drop out of the workforce, the enhanced impact of modern boards, and a key ingredient to helping employers solve problems in these extraordinary times.
When he first started trying to score clinical research data in the mid-1980’s, Stanford University neuroscientist Walter Greenleaf was using a ruler, pen and paper. Now, thanks in part to his pioneering efforts, similar research can be conducted using virtual reality and augmented reality devices. These technologies are also being integrated throughout medicine, including treatment for various mental health issues, a special focus of his. For instance, patients can be exposed to anxieties or fears through carefully designed virtual environments, allowing them to build confidence while clinicians gauge their progress. Greenleaf, a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, also sees broad potential for using virtual environments in workforce development and training, from handling difficult people and situations to bridging cultural gaps. Join Futuro Health’s CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan as she draws fascinating insights from Greenleaf gathered over decades of groundbreaking work in academia, technology development and medical product development, and find out what two skills he believes will open doors for healthcare workers in the decades to come.
Bryan Hancock has spent the last two decades focused on the disconnect between the skilled workers employers need and what is available in the workforce. As Global Leader of McKinsey & Company’s Talent Management Practice, he’s able to tap into the firm’s deep research on workforce trends to advise private and public sector clients and what he’s seeing is an even larger skills gap developing as automation and digitization take over a significant portion of what he calls “the dull and dangerous” work. In fact, McKinsey estimates 30 to 40 percent of all workers in developed countries may need to move into new occupations or at least upgrade their skill sets significantly in the next decade. Despite that daunting challenge, he’s not discouraged because many large employers are making big investments in employee learning opportunities, and technologies like virtual reality are creating fun and effective options for training. He’s also encouraged by growth in the “workforce ecosystem” – independent foundations, companies, and other organizations who are innovating to close gaps in skills and opportunity. Check out this episode of Workforce Rx as Bryan and Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan explore all of those issues plus the growing importance of soft skills, the impact of the gig economy, and how employers can take a “talent first” approach.
You can’t have an effective response to public health challenges without putting racial and social equity at the center of your approach, and one key way to do that is supplementing the healthcare workforce with “trusted voices” from underserved communities. That’s the view of Dr. Rishi Manchanda, a public health veteran and healthcare leader whose career has focused on developing new strategies to improve health in resource-poor communities. Through a mix of frontline and leadership positions, he’s helped provide care for homeless veterans, immigrant workers in rural areas, and communities in South Central Los Angeles. As an author and CEO of HealthBegins, he’s become a leading national voice on shifting the focus of our healthcare system to “upstream” causes of poor health status – such as access to quality food and housing — and creating equitable access to care. Check out this illuminating conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan to learn about “upstreamists”, the workforce-equity connection, and what COVID is teaching us about our healthcare system.
If you want to know how employers are changing their thinking about educating workers in the wake of COVID, Jaime Fall is in a great position to tell you. As director of the Aspen Institute’s workforce development initiative Upskill America, Jaime is constantly in touch with some of the 5,000 businesses in the program’s network and he has plenty of news to share with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan in this episode of WorkforceRx. From diversity to digital literacy to new safety protocols, businesses have many targets for training and advancement practices that were not necessarily priorities pre-COVID. And have you heard of the new trend in “outskilling”? Jaime is here to fill you in. Bottom line: as the pace of change continues to accelerate, companies need to invest in a culture of learning so their workers will have the skills they need to be effective and productive.
A Q&A with Futuro Health’s CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan on the origins of the organization’s groundbreaking model for growing the healthcare workforce, and the innovative ways Futuro is building onramps to education for adult learners.
Van Ton-Quinlivan reveals that her deep appreciation for educational opportunity is rooted in experiences making a new life in the U.S. after her family fled the Vietnam War. Helping others access the same transformational opportunities is her life’s work, and led to her guiding a billion-dollar workforce development program in the largest higher education system in the country, and becoming the founding CEO of Futuro Health.
Host and Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan describes what’s in store for listeners in this new interview series with national leaders and innovators in workforce development.