The Future of Work and the Healthcare Workforce

All right, happy Friday everyone and welcome to GovTech's In Case You Missed It, our government technology magazine news roundup. We're going to take a look at some of the biggest GovTech news from the past week and give you our thoughts on what it means for government citizens in the market in general. I'm Dustin Haisler, uh, Joe Morris is still on paternity leave but we'll be back next month. And today we've got a special guest and theme as we dive into the world of healthcare. Our special guest is Norma Padrón, the CEO of Empirica Lab and a PhD health economist with a ton of experience in this domain. She's got her PhD in economics at Yale. She was faculty at the medical school at Mount Sinai in New York before transitioning as an associate director in population health at Mainline Health. She's got a ton of expertise in data analytics and data products, as well as technology and healthcare. She's led interdisciplinary teams at the American Hospital Association and Anthem's Digital Incubator. always has a data and technology bend to what she does and has been really a fun person to follow and get to know over the years. But before we bring in Norma, let's talk a little bit about some of the news from the past week, because I'd be remiss not to mention some of the major market headlines that have shaped the world of GovTech in the last 7 days. Let's start first with OpenGov. OpenGov announced their intent to buy public asset management firm Cartegraph. Now, this is interesting because this puts OpenGov into a category, a unicorn category, But also it's a really interesting move for the market where this kind of gives them an operations and asset management play in state and local government. So this will be an exciting announcement to watch as we think about OpenGov's continued expansion into this platform territory. We also had public safety tech provider CivicEye announce that they raised $12.4 million in their Series A. So a lot of focus on new product development here, but, you know, this is showing the public safety market is also doing incredibly well as new companies are coming in and continuing to find ways to help law enforcement agencies use technology in new ways. And lastly, we saw Velocimo raise their $11 million Series A, which was a fantastic look at how some of these companies are now playing in the middle and finding ways to, you know, provide intelligent connection to all of the different integrations that are out there that used to require very clunky approaches to navigating. And as we look to this theme for today, we're gonna talk a little bit about healthcare. And there was a great piece that kind of recapped in our Disaster Zone podcast, really looking at the healthcare workforce challenge. And we know this has manifested itself in a variety of ways. We saw this in response to the initial pandemic, but workforce is still very much top of mind. And the ways that we have dealt with these challenges, the plays that we have used for these challenges just don't work anymore. And we need to find ways using technology, using new approaches, using data and analytics, and, you know, our people that we do have to find ways to actually do this differently and to expand upon our existing workforce, augment them with new tools, new skills, and new approaches. And so that is what we're going to dive into today. And I thought that was a great illustration of it. So I want to bring to the table our special guest, Norma Padron, as we dive into what she's working on here. So, Norma, thank you for joining us. Thank you, Dustin. Thanks for joining me from Austin. We could have done this, you know, in person at one of our many barbecue joints, but maybe next time.

Yes, thank you so much for having me, Dustin. I'm very happy to be here.

So just to start, I'd love to get a little bit, you know, I kind of teased your background, but, you know, your CV goes on and on with all of your experience in this domain. So tell me a little bit about your background and your journey to where you're at today.

Thank you. Yeah, so, well, I always start from where I'm from because it shaped really a lot of my professional and academic interests. Um, so I grew up in, you know, between Mexico and the US. Literally, I was born in McAllen. Um, and I speak a lot about how growing up healthcare was this sort of, you know, unattainable, kind of very complicated thing that I didn't quite understand, uh, why was that the case. So, um, yeah, so I mean, it shaped a lot growing up in the Valley, in the RGV in Texas, shaped a lot of what, uh, my interests were. I I had the good fortune of early on getting a scholarship and working at Duke University for a health economist. And it's one of those stories where, you know, as they say, the rest is history. Since 2007, I began working in questions that had to do a lot about how people behave and how— like, I was very interested in behavioral economics. And then later on in labor economics. So later on in sort of how employment and work conditions and ways of organizing at work affect health. So yeah, so that's a little bit of how I came into— how an economist came into the world of healthcare.

Yeah, I love that. And I think that really rounds out what you're doing. So tell me a little bit about the problem that you're looking at solving with Empirica Lab, kind of in this healthcare, public health domain, and maybe how some of that past experience helped you see a white space here.

Yeah, I mean, I love what you were commenting on, right? As we're very aware, I think the pandemic made us hyper-aware of how how unprepared we are and how, you know, despite how much the U.S. spends in healthcare, uh, we don't have enough staff. I mean, there's a shortage of doctors and nurses, um, and then we really have issues, uh, of access and how people have access to healthcare. I think that a little bit less commented or discussed on is the shortages in the workforce that is basically behind scenes, uh, the folks that are working with data, the folks that are, you know, collecting, analyzing, reporting the information so that services that we need when it comes to healthcare are, you know, high quality and they're, you know, in tip-top shape, right? And so that is the workforce that I've been, you know, really interested for a while. Um, when I think about digital health and virtual care and the type of healthcare of the future that we're interested in having, um, these are the teams. They're a little bit behind the scenes, but these are the teams that basically are tasked with health IT, project management, quality and performance improvement, all of the analytics so that, so that we can really blend IRL, in real person, you know, in real life services and digital health. And so that's the blank, blank space that we see. We think that there's a shortage of that type of staff, but also that the skilling and upskilling that needs to happen for that workforce moves so quickly. That basically there's a need for a new platform and a new model to deliver training and peer learning in that space.

Yeah, I love that. And as you said, you know, so much focus has been on the front end of it, but there's so much need on the back end, kind of the supply chain of our healthcare system from a human capital standpoint. So tell me a little bit about how knowledge transfer is happening in that domain today. And, you know, you've kind of introduced this really interesting concept of last-mile training. So tell us how that fits into this picture.

Yeah. So I think that first and foremost, I wanna say that the teams that I'm talking about are teams that I worked, you know, back when I was in Philly or in Chicago for the American Hospital Association, or most recently when I was working at a corporate incubator and accelerator program. So these are behaviors that are already happening. I mean, there's, we think a lot when we think again of the clinical workforce, there's grand rounds and huddles and they have their way of continuing learning, which happens in the clinical space. The nonclinical part of the house continues to do that. And so these are behaviors that, you know, it's very normal to have lunch and learns and webinars and, you know, to have sessions where folks kind of train each other on a new tool or a new implementation of a new technology. And so when we think of this type of sort of like, what are we bringing to the table, is sort of being the platform that just really facilitates the behaviors that are already happening. The way it's happening today, so a lot of this is through behaviors which have been disrupted by hybrid and remote work. And then consultants, which play a crucial role actually in healthcare, and when it comes to IT implementations or data implementations. And so we want to be sort of the glue in between. We think that there's a gap between the usual work tools that you use, you know, your MS Teams or your SharePoint. We have nothing against those, But then when it comes to learning and training, it's a little bit less about what is the new skill or, excuse me, the new exam or the new quiz that you need to take and more about how you develop that new skill. So we're thinking of something that really blends between work and learning and that is very targeted to how these teams operate, which is generally very project-based and with very clear objectives. You know, when you're working in healthcare, you have incredibly clear objectives around cost savings, patient experience, quality improvement. And so we're embedding all of that into the platform.

That's fantastic. So I know, you know, everyone talks about collaboration and, you know, as you said, you know, there's so many different tools and other domains that kind of play in this territory and it still remains elusive for a lot of organizations, like true collaboration. You know, as you said, the IRL stuff that we have when we're together, you know, how are you approaching catalyzing real collaboration with your approach and your tools?

Yeah, so, um, I mean, I think I go back to this sort of this behavioral background, right? And sort of thinking of how our team's operating today. Um, it's really intimidating, even, you know, today someone asks me to teach a class. Um, I have to prepare a lot, you know, I get a little bit anxious, and you have to kind of be more formal about it. But if you think about it, when you're at work and there's a colleague and comes in and asks you a question, like, you don't think twice. about saying, hey, this is how I did it, or let's solve this problem together. And so there are tools today that help you do that, right? Like, so you'd have project management tools or you have some collaborative tools. And I think where we see the gap and when it comes specifically in healthcare is that a lot of these projects have a lot of checklists and requirements and protocols around it. And so it's a reference back to the protocol and the peer learning that can help you sort of like get to those goals. And so we're embedding a lot of how, again, like just the normal behaviors that teams already have. case, like, we're not doing anything groundbreaking there. The more groundbreaking is just sort of making sure that that flows smoothly with the intelligence on what that project was about, what the objective for the project was, how are you measuring the goals and your objective. And ultimately, I mean, like I was saying about the workforce challenges, um, when another extra challenge in this part of the workforce in healthcare and everywhere, but especially in healthcare, is that the, um, sort of the folks that work in the spaces, generally their average tenure is very low. So it's less than 3 years. And so in the context of very complex data, very complex projects, you really wanna make sure that that knowledge and those insights remain organized for the organization, that it becomes knowledge capital. And so that's a little bit of the space that we work in. And then finally, I think I will say that we see a lot of value in specializing. Like we see a lot of value in as we're building a recommendation algorithm, our navigation systems, our, uh, even our search algorithms, you know, that everything is geared towards helping healthcare teams navigate. Um, and so we're starting with quality and performance improvement, but there are other areas that we're interested.

Yeah, I love that you overlay this on the existing behaviors and processes because I think that's something that a lot of tools, you know, try to create new processes. And, you know, as you've said, you know, this is a domain where time is finite and they don't have time to go and learn new processes. You need to really bring intelligence to their existing ways of doing things and layer on top of that. So love that. Now, one of the things that really stood out to me about your company is that you've taken that peer-driven approach, which, you know, you're crowdsourcing kind of the institutional knowledge of these organizations and these teams and, you know, making that a part of how you deliver those insights. So I would love for you to share a little bit about how you get employees to get bought into that process and participation without the anxiety that you mentioned that you might have in preparing for a class?

Yeah, that's a really good question. So I think maybe there are 2 insights, right? So one, when I was working in teams, for example, like inside, at some points when I was living in Philly, my office was inside a hospital, right? And so I think that I was very curious about how they work. And again, there's sort of this natural mix of behaviors on the learning side. And so we're really interested in just demystifying, again, like sort of it shouldn't be that nerve-wracking to share something. And we believe that everyone in this organization has something that brings to the table that can teach to their colleagues. There are 2 insights that we're drawing from. So one is that when there is sort of a mix of knowledge sharing and you sort of like designate a learning leader or like someone owns the content in some way, then that person is much more— the team is much more likely to engage with that content. So sort of there is some research that shows that, you know, if you're someone like you're taking a class or someone is giving you something and it's not necessarily your peer or someone you know, like you're going to be a little bit less engaged. And so we really want to, you know, we play a lot with this concept of like learning lead. Um, the second one is that if there is a clear objective, we call it work-integrated curriculum, people are again more likely to engage because this is less about an extra credential or an extra license And really just about saying like, we have this clear objective, we can see what the ROI of sticking to this deadline, and we can more purposefully or intentionally assess what the knowledge gaps are to get to that objective. So we're thinking a lot of that as we're designing like the features. And then I think that the point, and this is probably, you know, you speak to a lot of entrepreneurs, and so I'm sure this is not new to the audience, but remaining hyper-focused on the use cases that we're working with. with, right? Um, yes, there is the sort of like workforce that we're focusing on, which is the non-clinical technical workforce, but then within that there are specific use cases. So we're starting with 2 different use cases, one that is sort of like at the frontier of, um, AI and machine learning, um, and it's a collaborative project where different teams, uh, between like clinicians and data analysts wants to collaborate and sort of learn together. And the other one is quality and performance improvement project. And so I think like starting with this very clear use cases makes the collaboration, one, there's an objective to it. And then 2, you have kind of designated peers to teach. We do one final comment that I will say is that we do have an e-library that we're building of this sort of very niche content so that we can get ahead of the cold start problem. And so there's some content already for them and don't get too intimidated about sharing it. But So yeah, so collaboration with an objective, collaborating designated learning leads, so people owning a part of the project, a part of the content, and then like helping them get started via starting already with an eLibrary.

Yeah, that's great. I think that definitely breaks down some of those barriers. So, you know, and you kind of mentioned this before, but there's so much happening in the workforce, so many challenges. So why is focusing on that learning model so critical for organizations today? You know, they're looking at tackling these in a variety of ways with new programs, initiatives, managed services. So I'd love to get your thoughts, you know, as building a company in this space, like why is that learning model such a critical part to invest in today?

Yeah. I mean, I think that there are 2 big trends that employers are facing. I think again, in general and then in healthcare in specific. So we found some statistics that over 60% of healthcare organizations feel they're understaffed. They don't have the right staff to do all the digital initiatives and digital transformation they're interested in. And then we found some more statistics where they were asking basically more recently hospital executives about their digital initiatives and how they felt, and 88% said they didn't have the right skills to get to the goals that they wanted. And so you have sort of these two, these two sort of like trends. On one, we know that there is an imperative for healthcare organizations to be more data-driven, to go more digital. But on the other hand, you have a workforce that you know, they are already very skilled. Like, if you're talking to, you know, executives in the healthcare organization, you know, we were looking at sort of some of the statistics, you know, the majority have college degrees and some certificates and some degrees. And so really, this is— we're now entering a space where the training has to happen on the job.

Mm-hmm.

And then employers need to figure out what the right strategies should be for meeting the need, you know, meeting their objectives or being more data-driven and digital. Um, and, and just having a workforce that they think, you know, is not ready yet, it's not helping them move faster or as fast as they want. And so now employers really have to be considering what the right skills and what the right tools should be to build those skills to get to their objectives. Um, what we've seen in the market is that there is, when you think about sort of a spectrum, you know, there are content providers out there that are great content providers, right? Like there's a lot of content out there on you know, health IT or machine learning in healthcare and all of those sort of, you know, attributes that you'd like to move to digital. The problem is that this basically, this content isn't attached to work objectives. And so when you're asking someone that is already pulling in 45, 50 hours a week, because really no one works 40 hours, right? In healthcare, everyone works more than 40 hours. And you're asking them to watch like, I don't know, 60 hours of videos that may or may not be related for them to advance professionally and meet their work goals. Like, that's basically the gap, right? Like, that's the challenge. So that's why we speak so much about work-integrated curriculum, really making sure that the content that you're interacting with really is helping you drive your objectives and goals. And that's also like a behavioral kind of like insight that we're drawing to and embedding in the product. And then one final comment that I will say on this is that of course we're taking a data analytics approach to building these curriculums and these learning journeys. Um, so basically what we've done is that we've been studying 45 roles, um, in healthcare that touch data one way or another. So this could be your clinical data analyst, data, you know, data analyst, business intelligence, business analyst, population health analyst, quality and performance analyst, basically anyone in healthcare that has a role at different types of seniority that touches data. And what we've been studying is basically building a framework of how their tools So a tool could be Excel, could be SQL, could be PyTorch, right? How the tools that they use help them drive their competencies and skills. And so when we think of building these curriculums, which again are embedded in the platform, is sort of to say, well, here's the pathway. So how do you build better skills in this, you know, skills for this objective? And these are the tools that you'd use and these are the competencies you'd like to build on. And so we're taking an approach of basically focusing on the workforce, that really can help drive change within the healthcare space. I mean, obviously it's like, it's one of those things where, yeah, you can be a data scientist. Being a data scientist in healthcare is sort of like more complex and more challenging. So that's what we wanna do.

Yeah, no, I think that's super smart and you're kind of tying it to the individual positions or personas and I think mapping it down to the tools is really, really smart. So You know, as a female-founded and led startup, I'd love to get your perspective and advice for other entrepreneurs that are looking at building a company in a regulated industry like healthcare. You know, any words of advice for them?

It's like I chose healthcare and education, right?

That's right. The two domains they tell you to avoid, right?

Right. So I think, I mean, I would say two things. Like for the last few years, I have been working with early-stage companies. These were more Series A and beyond, but the early-stage companies in the digital health space. And so I was honestly frustrated because I would want to see them going to scale. And I couldn't understand really why are we not seeing these companies that are, they're amazing. And I would love for them to be in everyone's hands, you know, all over the country. And then realizing that the frontier or the limiting gap to this, to operationalizing this emerging technologies and emerging data, um, was that we just didn't know exactly, we weren't trained yet on how to ingest this new information, leverage these new tools. And so that made me be kind of like, sometimes when I think that what I'm doing is a little bit crazy, I'm like, no, I'm certain this is what I know. I know this to be true. I know that there's a gap that we're not going to be scaling digital healthcare tools or sophisticated data analytics until we focus on the workforce that can do this. So I have a lot of conviction and I think that helps, whether you're a man or a woman. I have a lot of conviction in what we're building. Um, but I think that I will say that, and I don't know if this is like a piece of advice or something, but, uh, building a really good team, uh, you know, helps. And so I have the good fortune, our head of engineering, Flor Capmarterez, you know, she has over 10 years of experience building software and enterprise and, you know, consumer products. Um, and so we have some folks on the team that just kind of push, push, we push each other to go, to go farther. But I'm having a lot of conviction and building a really good team.

I love that. So looking to the future, I'd love to get your thoughts on what do you think the most pressing challenges that our healthcare systems are going to face, and how are you looking at maybe helping them solve that with your approach?

Yeah, I mean, I think that having an understanding of what the objectives and goals are going to be— and I know this sounds like incredibly simplistic, but, um, you know, when we speak of digital technology and when we speak of more data-driven delivery of care, you know, right time, right place, um, these are incredibly intense data-intensive endeavors, right? And so you, you know, employers and organizations, be it on the health insurance side or the healthcare delivery side or healthcare technology side, um, they really need to make sure that, um, that, you know, the right tools and the right skills and the right workforce is there to deliver on that. It's, um, It's been humbling, right? I think in the last few years to see how unprepared, I guess, to, to many extents, like the healthcare space was. And so I think that, um, but I, you know, I have faith that, uh, we will be better prepared, uh, going forward. But I mean, definitely it's a story. It's a story about investing in your workforce and it's a story about having the right tools and resources. So I think the space will continue to move in that. I think everything that we get excited about, right, hinges on having the right training and the right teams to deliver on that excitement. And so I do, I'm optimistic.

Yeah, strong convictions. I love it. So who's your ideal customer that you're looking to work with today? You know, who are you, you know, who's kind of the best person to reach out to you if they want more information?

Yeah, well, listen, we're really early and I think that that should be exciting for folks that wanna work with us. in that we are looking for partners that are interested, that have a clear objective in where their knowledge gaps are or are interested in knowing what their knowledge gaps are for the workforce. And generally, the, you know, great partners would have, you know, an objective around like improving on their data analytic models or like data analytic, you know, things that they're doing for their— within their workforce. But also like they have maybe digital imperatives or trying to go more virtual. And so now they're going to be ingesting data that is new format. And so they want to do that training for the workforce. And so, yeah, so we are really good partners. We're, you know, right now we're partnering with one health system organization. And so that's great. But then we have some other partners that are smaller healthcare technology companies that are really interested in like advancing on rapid onboarding. And so, and getting a lot of data on how that onboarding content is performing. So yeah, healthcare technology organizations or healthcare systems.

Fantastic. Well, where can they go to learn more about you and your work? Where's the best place?

So they can definitely look us up on our website and leave a note there. But then, thank you. And then of course, like, just reach out to me on LinkedIn and send me a message and I'll definitely get in touch.

Awesome. Well, it's been so great having you on the show today. I can't wait to continue following your exponential success going forward because we definitely need new approaches to solving these problems. So thanks again, Norma, for carving some time out to join us.

Thank you so much, Dustin.

And we'll see everyone next Friday at 12 p.m. Pacific time on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter for more In Case You Missed It. We're also streaming on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, so give us a subscribe there. Have a great weekend, everyone, and we'll see you next week.