As the construction of medical cities and hospitals accelerates, there is a critical roadblock to solve – the serious global workforce crisis in healthcare. Growing, ageing populations with high burden of non-communicable disease are leading to an exponential rise in demand for clinicians. The WHO estimates a shortfall of 15 million health workers by 2030 and this shortage is prominently evident in the GCC countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Exacerbating workforce shortages is the ticking retirement time bomb with healthcare systems haemorrhaging clinicians faster than governments can create strategies to train more. This session will discuss what can be done to stem the mass exodus of staff, and train, recruit and retain the next generation of healthcare workers skilled to thrive amid rapid digital transformation. It will include a virtual fireside chat between the US and Saudi comparing approaches to building health informatics competencies frameworks.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn key strategies to training, recruiting and retaining the next generation of healthcare workers

• Understand the approach to creating Health Informatics Competency Frameworks for health informatics professionals in the US and Saudi Arabia

• Learn how technology can help address staff burn-out, high turnover and people shortages