“The evidence is very sparse when it comes to effective practice in the workforce development field,” says Brent Orrell of The American Enterprise Institute. But it’s not all bad news. The strong exception is sector-based training. “That is one of the rare gems where we can say with relative certainty that if workforce development practitioners do this approach in the right way, they can get good results.” Join Orrell and Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan as they explore why this approach gets results, what community colleges need to do to bolster their role in workforce development and how workers should respond to the advent of generative AI.

What’s the value of having health insurance if you can’t access care? That’s an increasingly pertinent question for states which have successfully expanded insurance eligibility in recent years but are struggling to meet the increasing demand for healthcare. Our guest today on WorkforceRx, Dr. Sandra Hernandez, is a key player in developing solutions to this problem in her role as president and CEO of the California Health Care Foundation. As Hernandez tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, key approaches include strategic use of the primary care workforce and leveraging community health workers who have special credibility in their own communities. Don’t miss this veteran perspective on vexing issues facing many areas of the US — including how to care for growing numbers of immigrants and the unsheltered — and stay tuned for a dose of optimism rooted in lessons learned from the pandemic.

As LinkedIn marks its 20th anniversary, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan welcomes LinkedIn co-founder Allen Blue to WorkforceRx to explore ways people can leverage its 900 million user profiles for employment insights. Blue also discusses his areas of focus at the company which include sharing economic data with governments and institutions to improve education and workforce policy. “We derive insights about how skills are emerging and changing, about the landscape of education, about new technologies…and we aggregate all that data and go talk to policymakers so that governments can act.” Whether you are an employer, job seeker, educator or looking for career advancement, there is much to learn from this social media pioneer.

Most home care workers are women of color working more than one job, struggling to afford childcare, and doing difficult work without any prospects for advancement. It’s no wonder it’s hard to find and retain workers for these critically needed positions. That’s why today’s WorkforceRx guest, Mark Burns, Executive Director of the San Francisco-based Homebridge home care agency, is so pleased to be involved in California’s new $200 million Career Pathways paid training program which is designed to increase wages, skill levels and career mobility for this workforce. Join Burns and Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan as they discuss leading edge innovations in home care workforce development that could stabilize and improve access to care for some of the most vulnerable members of our communities.

The average U.S. job has seen 37% of its skills replaced in just the last five years according to Matt Sigelman, one of the country’s leading labor market experts. That blistering pace of change begs the question of how workers and employers are going to acquire new skills on a such a rapid and continuing basis. That’s exactly the type of challenge Sigelman and his colleagues tackle at The Burning Glass Institute, a nonprofit research center that explores data for fresh insights that can be used to build mobility, opportunity and equity in the workforce. Join WorkforceRx host and Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan for an informative scan of key questions confronting the labor economy such as skills-based hiring, career mobility and the implications of increasingly powerful chat bots.

For those understandably concerned about the future of higher education, the optimism of today’s WorkforceRx guest Mark Milliron should serve as a salve. The new President and CEO of National University believes we’re entering an historic era of reinvention due to new tech and tools that foster innovation. “I just think we’re going to be able to try, test and learn in ways we haven’t seen in a long, long time. It’s going to be pretty exciting,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Don’t miss this expansive discussion packed with ideas about transforming work-study programs to boost healthcare workforce development, moving to a mastery-based learning system and the necessity of shifting to “whole human” education.

Global business leader Futhi Mtoba credits her considerable success to her parents’ belief that it was critically important for girls to be educated, a groundbreaking view in 1950s South Africa. This personal background explains why she’s been involved in education and the empowerment of women throughout her career, including being a board member for the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls. She is also Co-Convener of the Women Economic Assembly, a national initiative seeking improved access for women to government and private sector procurement, employment, housing and other economic essentials. Tune in as Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan looks at how one country is working to strengthen its economy and society by helping women get a fair shot at economic opportunity.

As a medical student at Johns Hopkins University ten years ago, Shiv Gaglani quickly realized it was time to shake up a century-old approach to medical education and make the experience more personalized and efficient. That was the spark for creating Osmosis, an online and mobile learning platform that he left med school to grow. The company, which was acquired last year by the European-based medical publisher Elsevier, has attracted millions of medical and allied health students to its learning system and short-form educational videos. Check out this engaging conversation with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan about what’s changed in medical education, the qualities that health professions students will need in the future and why Shiv is returning to medical school later this year.

“It’s hard to bring what happens in the living room and the dining room into the boardroom,” says Paurvi Bhatt, board director of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers and healthcare executive. Put another way, most of us are providing care to a loved one, and being open about that with colleagues, she thinks, can create a culture of understanding that will increase employee wellbeing. While employers are starting to be more supportive of caregivers and the discussion on paid family leave has advanced, daunting challenges remain to make caring for loved ones at home viable, which Bhatt analyzes with the keen eye of someone who built a career as a global health leader despite heavy family caregiving responsibilities of her own. Join Bhatt and Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan for a wisdom drop on how to rebrand the role of caregivers, reinvigorate the home care workforce, provide ethnically adapted care and get the home truly ready for home care.

“One of the trends that we’ll see in 2023 is a reimagining of benefits. You’ll see more employers thinking about how they can meet an employee where they are so they feel valued,” says Dr. Angela Jackson who, as founder of the labor market intelligence firm Future Forward Strategies, is plugged-in to shifting worker demands and their implications. As she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan in this episode of WorkforceRx, employers would also be wise to understand the lived realities of employees in order to address what Jackson has dubbed the “social determinants of work” such as childcare and transportation. Don’t miss this deeply informed look at labor market trends that may usher in a more equitable future of work.

Every day, nearly five million direct care workers support older adults and people with disabilities across the United States, and the critical need for this workforce is only increasing as the proportion of people over sixty-five continues to grow dramatically. But due to an existing shortage of workers and a high turnover rate in the profession, the chances of meeting that need are low. Robert Espinoza, executive vice president for policy at PHI, joins Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan on this episode of WorkforceRx for an exploration of a deeply troubled system and the potential solutions to this crisis.

Even if all of the unemployed people in Connecticut took one of the 109,000 open positions in the state, there would still be thousands of jobs left unfilled. What that says to Mark Argosh, chair of the Governor’s Workforce Council, is the state needs to get more people off the sidelines. “We have to be able to increase the labor force participation rate in Connecticut, and what that means is especially focus on underserved populations that face significant barriers,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Tune in to this episode of WorkforceRx for a deep dive into best practices in workforce development at the state level, and learn how the non-profit Argosh leads, Social Venture Partners Connecticut, employs a “venture philanthropy” model to close opportunity gaps in the state.

There’s mounting skepticism about the value of higher education among prospective students and their parents, causing alarm among policymakers on the implications of this trend for the quality of the future U.S. workforce and economy. A continuing sharp decline in college enrollments is perhaps the key proof point, but there are many other symptoms, causes and potential solutions which Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan explores on this episode of WorkforceRx with Jon Marcus, higher education editor for The Hechinger Report.

As a new school year gets underway at colleges and universities around the country, it’s a good time to take stock of where higher education finds itself after several very challenging years brought on by a massive public health crisis and unprecedented economic turbulence. On this episode of WorkforceRx, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan turns to veteran higher ed leader Dr. Marjorie Hass, President of the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), for insight. You won’t want to miss this wide-ranging look at the innovations and trends emerging in this uniquely challenging time for higher ed.

When it comes to the impact of artificial intelligence on the workforce, there is still a major split between those who worry about “robots” replacing workers, and those who think employees will benefit from AI if it is harnessed the right way. On this episode of WorkforceRx, Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan asks one of the world’s leading experts in the field, Dr. Tom Mitchell of Carnegie Mellon University, to weigh in on the debate. Don’t miss this penetrating look at one of the most disruptive technologies of our time.

There’s growing interest in the integration of oral healthcare with medical care, and there’s good reason: about 30 million Americans who visit their dentist annually do not have similar contact with a primary care provider. Our guest on this episode, Dr. Nader Nadershahi, says this presents a tremendous opportunity for an additional way to identify problems such as diabetes and heart disease in patients. Join WorkforceRx host and Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan as she and Dr. Nadershahi explore the emerging possibilities of interprofessional practice, workforce challenges in the field of dentistry, and the future of oral healthcare education.

What would veteran workforce training leader Jane Oates do to improve the hiring system if she had a magic wand? “I would take away all of the buts, as in ‘I would hire you, but you don’t have experience, but you have a disability, but you’re too old.’” It will not only help achieve equal access to employment, she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, but right now employers could really use a bigger talent pool. After many years in government service, capped with being Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training in the Obama administration, Oates is currently leading WorkingNation, a non-profit focused on educating the public and policymakers about achievable solutions to prepare workers for the future. This episode of WorkforceRx is full of interesting ideas and angles to consider for those concerned about closing the troubling gap between job openings and available workers.

From building a model HIV/AIDS program in Iran to creating a long-distance program to train doctors in war-torn Syria, Dr. Kamiar Alaei has overcome daunting obstacles to make a broad impact on global health. On this inspiring episode of WorkforceRx he shares lessons learned both in the trenches of public health and the corridors of Harvard, Oxford and other top universities with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Chief among them is the importance of collaboration, which he says requires knowing your audience and being willing to do a ‘dance with partners.’ Don’t miss this wisdom drop on effective strategies for strengthening public health and the education programs that sustain it from the founding director of the Global Institute for Health and Human Rights, and an internationally celebrated health hero.

Johnathan Holifield spent many years deeply involved in neighborhood and community development work without really moving the needle until he discovered the game-changing nature of the innovation economy. As senior vice president of New Economies at Bitwise Industries, he’s now in a position to help what he calls “disconnected populations” gain access to the best options for economic advancement, and do so on an increasingly national scale. Check out this illuminating episode of WorkforceRx as Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan explores how Bitwise is bringing its successful formula of workforce development, technology consulting and creating great community spaces to seven states and counting.

Obstacles – from language proficiency to digital literacy to family care – make it difficult for adults to get on, and stay on, an education path towards a career they desire. On this episode of WorkforceRx, Futuro CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan is joined by Jacque Burandt who spent decades at University Health System in San Antonio, Texas, breaking down those barriers. Tune in to hear her formula for creating and sustaining successful employee upskilling and reskilling programs.