By Tashfeen Suleman, co-founder and CEO of CloudMedx.
The labor shortage in America is affecting all sorts of industries, from transportation to hospitality to retail. The Washington Post notes that “with more than 11 million job openings and only 6 million unemployed workers, employers have struggled for more than a year to hire enough people to fill their ranks.”
At the same time, many businesses are also bracing for the possibility of a recession, when they might cut back on voracious hiring. All of this leaves them with a clear predicament: They need to learn quickly how to get more done with fewer people.
Technology can help tremendously. In just about every industry, there are numerous repetitive tasks that new technology could take on—freeing up personnel to focus only on work that requires a human touch. When it comes to adopting these technologies, however, the barriers to entry are often very high.
It isn’t just the expense of taking on new tech. Quite often, the bigger problems are time, effort and complexity. Facing so many daily challenges, many businesses aren’t in a position to learn the ins and outs of new tools, train their staff and add yet another solution to their existing tech stack.
I see all of this in an industry in which tech adoption can be a matter of life and death: healthcare. Traditionally, healthcare is especially resistant to technological disruption. Although that has been improving, with more healthcare providers ready to embrace new tools, there’s still a very long way to go.
It’s especially problematic now given the widespread shortage of workers in the sector. The American Hospital Association calls it a “national emergency”—and the problem is global. The World Health Organization predicts a shortfall of 10 million health workers by 2030.
Working with major players in the healthcare system—including hospitals, patients and insurance groups—to deliver new technological solutions, I’ve found keys to transforming the automation process. Steadily, instead of relying on personnel to do all sorts of manual and repetitive tasks, healthcare systems we work with are starting to hand over those tasks to automation tools. In one case, we demonstrated that our tool could process half a million healthcare records in less than 24 hours, which would usually take hundreds of people weeks of work. This can allow organizations to use their personnel in other high-impact areas while leaving the rote tasks to machines.
Here are steps that any business offering solutions can take to help the industries they focus on move manual processes to a combination of human and AI—what I call “boots and bots.”
If you’re building a tool that’s aimed at a specific sector, it’s likely that you’ve got someone—or even a few people—on your team with a background in the sector. Include them as key stakeholders and get frequent feedback from representative samples of people across the sector. This can help make sure your solutions are custom tailored to their needs and will gain adoption.
People face different pain points and challenges that you can help to solve, and users can spot different problems with your solution itself. The more responses you get, the better. From the ground up, your technology should be designed with all of this in mind.
Many business leaders feel that they have too many tools. They’re looking to cut back. Even if you’re sure your technology will save their business time and money, don’t expect them to jump at it. Expect resistance due to “app fatigue.”
To help them see how well it works, be sure your solution integrates instantly and easily with their existing stack. The less it feels like a big change, the better.
This is where platforms could be more promising than single-task tools. A platform that works with an organization’s new technology can present a slew of tools as easy “add-ons” to its daily workflow. This can mean less of a need for training around adoption. It also can mean that tools added to the platform in the future should be just as accessible.
To help them see how well it works, be sure your solution integrates instantly and easily with their existing stack. The less it feels like a big change, the better.
This is where platforms could be more promising than single-task tools. A platform that works with an organization’s new technology can present a slew of tools as easy “add-ons” to its daily workflow. This can mean less of a need for training around adoption. It also can mean that tools added to the platform in the future should be just as accessible.
In addition to offering your tech solution, be sure to provide all the manpower your target clients need for adoption. Some will need a great deal of hand-holding, with people from your company on-site getting everything up and running.
This takes being proactive as well. Even once your solution is in place and delivering results, reach out to users with a warm touch. Be available on whichever platform they wish to use to reach you—phone, text, messaging, etc. As often as possible, talk them through how to do things yourself rather than sending them links and resources to read and figure out on their own.
The more they know that you care about the people doing the work, the more likely they’ll be to discover all of the benefits of what you have to offer.
The good news is that both are available. Terrific talent can be hired to join your team, and new technology to deliver solutions is constantly sprouting up. To succeed, invest in boots and bots—and know that finding the right balance between the two is a crucial pillar of modern business.
This takes being proactive as well. Even once your solution is in place and delivering results, reach out to users with a warm touch. Be available on whichever platform they wish to use to reach you—phone, text, messaging, etc. As often as possible, talk them through how to do things yourself rather than sending them links and resources to read and figure out on their own.
The more they know that you care about the people doing the work, the more likely they’ll be to discover all of the benefits of what you have to offer.
The good news is that both are available. Terrific talent can be hired to join your team, and new technology to deliver solutions is constantly sprouting up. To succeed, invest in boots and bots—and know that finding the right balance between the two is a crucial pillar of modern business.
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