The use of simulation in healthcare training used to be confined to actors posing as patients and the use of medical mannequins. But the options have grown far beyond that to include 3D virtual reality, augmented reality, and game-based learning, among other approaches. On this episode of WorkforceRx, we’re going to get an overview of the space with one of its leading experts, Dr. Parvati Dev, CEO of SimTabs. Dr. Dev has four decades of experience developing tech solutions for life sciences education in industry and academia, including groundbreaking work at Stanford University. Join Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan for this enlightening conversation in which Dr. Dev offers advice on how to decide when simulation is the right tool, shares her views on the extent to which simulation can replace in-person clinical training, and offers a vision for how, with the help of AI, an ecosystem of training tools can be created to move the industry to a higher level of impact.

Learning loss, declining enrollments and increases in behavioral problems are just a few of the issues education leaders are grappling with as the new school year begins. Our WorkforceRx guest, Carissa Moffat Miller, is in the thick of efforts to help school system leaders find potential solutions as CEO of the Council of Chief State School Officers. “The pandemic disruption has created an opportunity for us to think about things differently, and for state chiefs to change the ecosystem of school,” she tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Tune in to hear examples of new approaches to tutoring, after school programs and digital learning and to learn what role employers can play in supporting state education goals.

“Healthcare is just so large and complex and expensive. We’ve got to find better ways to reach across political divides, ideological disagreements and narrow, sector-based perspectives,” says Tanya Harris, who runs the Health Innovators Fellowship at the Aspen Institute which is designed to do just that. The program provides a diverse group of mid-career professionals with the opportunity to do the kind of connecting and thinking that’s not possible in the rush of daily life. “People take bigger bets in their own professional journey than they might have otherwise,” she explains to Futuro Heath CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan in this engaging conversation about efforts to foster greater coordination in the U.S. healthcare system and the importance of aligning incentives to achieve better outcomes.

There’s a proven but underutilized solution for some of the toughest challenges facing today’s US labor market, including a lack of skilled workers and inequitable access to well-paying jobs: apprenticeships. That’s according to our WorkforceRx guest, Dr. Mardy Leathers of Apprenticeships for America who discusses how to help employers set them up and use them and what barriers remain to their wider adoption with Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. A key strategy to boost their number is the expansion of intermediaries — organizations that design apprenticeship programs and provide support to learners and employers. “Employers can’t do it on their own. If someone can help them navigate the process, they are much more likely to lean in.” Don’t miss a great learning opportunity that might change your perceptions about apprenticeships and their value to employers.

Worsening staff shortages in healthcare are prompting big shifts in how New Mexico’s hospitals are approaching the issue as we’ll hear in this episode of WorkforceRx from Troy Clark, President & CEO of the New Mexico Hospital Association. First, a traditionally competitive mindset is yielding to a more collaborative approach, something they saw working during the pandemic. Additionally, his members are realizing they have substantial disadvantages in competing against hospitals in other states for a limited supply of workers, so they are adopting a “grow your own” strategy instead. Tune in as Troy and Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan explore solutions that include expanding clinical learning opportunities, encouraging community colleges to leverage remote learning technologies and getting more people from a diverse set of communities interested in healthcare careers in the first place.

“We’re asking students effectively to take a bet on themselves and what we have seen in recent years is the growing problem of debt that doesn’t pay off for them,” says Sameer Gadkaree, president & CEO of The Institute for College Access and Success. As Gadkaree points out to Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan, risk in the higher education system has gradually been shifted to students and their families. A big part of the solution, he says, is building debt-free paths to college by stitching together local, state and federal programs and supplementing financial assistance with social supports. Tune in for a probing look at improving access to higher education that also acknowledges some positive trends. “I think there’s a growing awareness of the harms of student debt and that we really need to change if we’re going to achieve greater racial equity and economic mobility.”

While it will be years before researchers render a verdict on how the wholesale shift to online learning during COVID impacted student performance, in higher education, positive attitudes about it and expectations for more use of digital course materials and learning technology have increased. Our guest on this episode of WorkforceRx, Matthew Rascoff, is keeping a close eye on these trends as vice provost for Digital Education at Stanford University. “Part of the legacy of the pandemic is the plurality of approaches that are now available to instructors. It’s important to start with the needs of our learners and work our way backwards to the modality that will meet those needs most effectively,” he tells Futuro Health CEO Van Ton-Quinlivan. Tune in to learn about emerging options in edtech that create asynchronous learning communities, and provide the “social capital” that leads to successful careers. Plus, Matthew and Van discuss the emergence of AI tutors, and a program that offers Stanford courses for credit to Title I high schools across the country.

“I haven’t really seen that much in my career as a journalist where California and Alabama are rowing in the same direction,” says Paul Fain, whose weekly newsletter, The Job, focuses on the nexus between education and work. On this episode of WorkforceRx, Fain shares what’s new and interesting in this space with Futuro Health CEO Van-Ton-Quinlivan including several experiential learning models gaining traction around the country. “One company I looked at offers learning simulations to college students that are designed by companies so the student can decide ‘Am I good at this? Do I like this?’” Another area of new energy, Fain says, is based on a very old model: apprenticeships. Overall, Fain senses growing urgency among business leaders that growing income equality is an existential threat to our economy and society, a view he shares. Tune in for a wealth of insights into what Fain calls “one of the biggest stories of my career.”

“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.