Rural Workforce Insights — Building Teams

Building successful teams is vital in healthcare, especially in rural settings where small teams are expected to care for large and dispersed populations. Discover how rural healthcare experts are building teams through investing in talent and “growing their own talent”, expanding nursing roles, managing a changing healthcare landscape, utilizing technology like telemedicine, and introducing young community members to different healthcare opportunities.

Nurses in rural healthcare setting are playing a prominent role in critical access hospitals, and their roles are changing. By learning the social determinants of health and involving themselves in the community, nurses are key to promoting population health.

Healthcare is constantly changing. With the shift towards value-based payment and population health, it is imperative for workforce planning and development to be streamlined into general strategic operations to manage these changes.

Building teams can be done through technology. Telehealth allow access for those in remote and rural areas where a specialist may not exist. Telehealth can provide services where there are deficits, so it is key for an organization’s healthcare staff to be knowledgeable on types of services available for their patients.

The best way to build a healthcare team? Grow your own from within the community. Invest in your community and its members and their education, help them get through school and recognize their nursing skills. That really allows for the longest term success.

Another way to engage the community and grow a workforce from within that community is exposing students to rural healthcare careers. By engaging them early and showing them various career options within a healthcare facility, they can aim to build their futures with a specific healthcare career in mind.