Building the public health workforce of tomorrow

Since the first case of COVID-19 hit the United States, public health units across the country have been working non-stop to contain this deadly disease. In the two years since the first lockdowns, we’ve all seen these professionals work diligently to help educate the public about the risks, give tips on how to prevent getting infected, and how to quarantine if someone did catch COVID. Public health professionals collected a wide variety of data to give leaders a clear picture of the situation to make informed policy decisions.

One unexpected outcome of the pandemic has been the so-called Great Resignation. In 2021 alone, more than 47 million people voluntarily quit their jobs. This wave of workers leaving positions did not spare the public health units or the health care industry. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that as of March 2022, employment in this industry fell by 298,000 positions, or 1.8 percent, since February 2020. That figure includes nurses, doctors, lab technicians and other health care professionals.

Every state in the country has its health agency, augmented by more than 3,000 public health units at the city or county level. They likely all need new workers to help handle the growing number of tasks they are required to perform. Thus, this is an excellent time for these departments to start with strategic hirings that focus on the future of public health. In addition to the priority needs for clinicians, nurses, doctors and other medical professionals, an effective public health workforce needs information technology (IT) experts to design and maintain systems to share data securely, efficiently and accurately.

The future workforce

It is important to remember that the level of technology at the various public health units varies greatly. Some are fully digital with a high degree of automation while others are still using paper forms that staffers must manually enter into a database. The focus on new IT professionals will require people who can help lift units that need to embrace and start automation or work with the high-tech ones to maintain and improve efficiencies. Hiring managers will need to recruit people with a potent mix of hard and soft skill sets. This will ensure they have the right technical and people skills to do the work and be effective in explaining why it must be done in a specific way. One objective should be a strong partnership between the IT professionals and the people they work with and the correct mix of capabilities are fundamental.

The hard skills are reasonably straightforward. The candidate should have a deep knowledge of architectural frameworks or languages like SQL, Java and other computer codes. With this background, they will be able to work with the latest software while helping convert information from legacy systems to modern programs. The candidate, having domain experience with the health unit’s systems, helps the unit require less onboarding time and be able to contribute to the organization sooner.

Several nice-to-have skills include familiarity with the software development life cycle, such as project management or quality assurance best practices and methodologies. The candidate having experience or exposure to process improvement methodologies like Lean, Agile or Six Sigma would be useful. Constantly improving processes helps with automation and reduces waste and inefficiencies.

Communication is key

Finding candidates with the appropriate soft skills might be a more significant challenge for hiring managers—the most important attribute to look for in candidates are those who can communicate effectively. Regardless of personality type (introvert or extrovert), these employees must be able to communicate with team members and other stakeholders. This is an essential interpersonal skill and covers both oral and written communication. It will allow an IT professional to explain issues to other stakeholders or collaborate with colleagues on larger projects.

New hires should be intelligent, friendly, driven and proactive. Flexibility is also a crucial skill that many dismiss. Being flexible means the worker can try new roles, do other tasks in the organization, or learn new skills to keep them relevant. COVID showed the importance of this flexibility because workers were forced to take on new challenges and multitask during the height of the crisis when new systems needed to be developed while infections and burnout impacted staffing.

As public health departments around the country look to their future staffing needs, there is increased importance in having strong IT support. These units continue to see growing responsibilities, from disease prevention and protection against environmental hazards like lead in the water to promoting healthy communities and preparing for emergencies. Having the technical infrastructure to digitize many of these tasks is essential to give front-line workers the ability to focus on the crucial part of their jobs. The IT workers need to have solid hard skills, but they must also have those soft skills that promote open communication and collaboration.

Ted Hill, senior vice president at SSG, is a project manager with 20+ years of experience directing and managing operations and logistics. In addition to his prior work, he has been project manager for a variety of state public health information technology (IT) initiatives including Early Intervention, health care exchange (HIX) and MMIS. His skill sets and experience enable him to proactively ensure effective implementation of systems while realizing cost and cycle time improvements