René Seifert, co-head of TrueProfile.io
Scaling up means saving lives in today’s unprecedented times, with revolutionary blockchain technology tipped as the unlikely hero for the global healthcare staffing crisis
Exacerbated by the outbreak of COVID-19, global healthcare workforce shortages are being felt by hospitals, clinics, staff and patients around the world. In 2018, the WHO predicted a shortfall of 18 million healthcare workers by 2030; however, the unforeseen and all-consuming nature of COVID-19 makes previous forecasts seem incredibly conservative.
The pandemic has placed extraordinary demands on healthcare workers at all levels, intensifying the existing staffing shortfalls within the medical sector. The sheer volume of patients coupled with staff themselves falling ill are leaving doctors, nurses and other frontline workers around the world ill-equipped to battle the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 virus. In spite of pharmaceutical companies working tirelessly to develop a vaccine, the aftereffects of the pandemic are anticipated for years to come.
COVID-19 puts healthcare technology in the spotlight
With traditional hiring methods no longer able to keep up with the growing pace of staffing shortages around the world, COVID-19 has caused global healthcare regulators to rethink their staffing processes. With many countries around the world reliant on healthcare talent from overseas, the shortfall in skills is being compounded by the lengthy and often bureaucratic process of verifying healthcare credentials and qualifications.
For context, the current recruitment process can take anywhere up to six months, which is particularly the case when it comes to hiring employees from abroad and verifying their credentials. However, this is a timeframe that hospitals just simply don’t have right now. An intensified need for healthcare staff has caused the worlds of healthcare and technology to collide and one technology that is emerging as a possible solution to streamlining the recruitment process, is blockchain.
Blockchain: an overview
A blockchain is a shared, distributed file which records transactions. Each transaction is added as a block and is stored decentralised in the chain. Crucially, this means that no central party has control over its content, and nobody can tamper with the records because every member has to agree to its validity and can check the history of record changes.
Early reports about blockchain were dominated by references to cryptocurrency, which made it seem like the only application for the technology would be across the financial services market. However, a range of sectors have started utilising the technology for a variety of use-cases, including healthcare and telemedicine. In particular, blockchain in healthcare is usually mentioned in the context of patients’ medical records, as it can provide absolute proof and confidence that they cannot be altered.
Blockchain’s role in healthcare staffing
With this in mind, an innovation that is gathering pace when it comes to tackling skill shortages is blockchain-powered verifications. For example, using a blockchain-enabled professional document verification platform, such as TrueProfile.io, can enable candidates to securely upload and verify private documents, such as passport or university certificates, providing them with a form of portable credentials. Employers and healthcare regulators can then view and verify candidates’ credentials against the blockchain.
From a hiring standpoint, this can help to drastically streamline and speed up the verification process by eliminating the continual churn of verification requests on both employers and educational institutions every time a healthcare professional applies for a new role. For healthcare candidates themselves, the process is also expedited as their credentials only need to be verified once before being saved on the blockchain. They can then share this with potential employers at any point during their careers, rather than having to be verified each time when applying for a role.
In addition, the pressures caused by the pandemic mean that by mitigating risk and hiring the right person, first time around, are paramount. By using blockchain-enabled professional document verification, employers and regulators can eliminate the risk of hiring unqualified, fraudulent individuals, ensuring that patients and co-workers are protected.
Overall, where it might have taken anything up to six months to verify an overseas healthcare professional’s credentials, the latest blockchain-enabled online platforms remove these obstacles altogether. This offers an invaluable opportunity to significantly reduce the time-to-hire of healthcare staff by giving healthcare recruiters, employers and regulators access to a bank of prescreened and verified medical talent who are ready to be hired and relocate where their expertise is needed most. For the sake of the ongoing fight against COVID-19 and the long-term health of the healthcare sector, this increased efficiency, without compromise on security, could prove to be the difference.