New ATD Research: 2019 State of Healthcare Training Report

Nursing shortages and move to value-based care are key drivers for training in many hospitals.

According to new research from the Association for Talent Development (ATD) most hospital systems are not prepared or only moderately prepared for the looming nursing shortage. This finding is one of many in ATD’s 2019 State of Healthcare Training report. The research also explores training benchmark data and the status of the move to value-based care (VBC).

In 2018, healthcare became the largest employment sector in the United States, and more than 2 million healthcare jobs are expected to be added in the next decade. The report notes that talent development professionals in the healthcare industry are tasked with many challenges such as ensuring employees develop the skills they need to succeed and finding strategies to manage talent shortages and retain employees.

Key findings from the report are:

· Organizations spent an average of $602 on learning per employee in 2018.

· Employees used an annual average of 25.5 learning hours. This is less than the average for organizations in all industries as reported in ATD’s 2018 State of the Industry report (34.1 hours).

· 24 percent of organizations have already switched to a value-based care model. Another 16 percent were in the process of switching to a VBC payment model while 10 percent were planning to switch.

· 27 percent of respondents say their organization is prepared for the nursing shortage to a high or very high extent. About one in 10 respondents say their organization is not at all prepared.

· The top strategies organizations are using to retain nurses are tuition reimbursement, increased opportunities for internal advancement, and formal partnerships with educational institutions.

Training is difficult in the healthcare sector, according to Jacque Burandt, former executive director for the Center for Learning Excellence at University Health System in San Antonio, Texas. “It is extremely difficult to get an employee ‘off the job’ to attend training,” Burandt noted for the report. “There are so many competing priorities in any healthcare organization, and the patient always comes first. You can’t just walk away and go to class. Someone’s got to take care of the patient, someone’s got to read those lab results, clean the rooms, turn the bed. It’s all very time dependent.”

To learn more about the research findings and what healthcare organizations are doing to develop the skills of employees, access the full research report, sponsored by Qstream, at www.td.org/2019healthcarereport.