A professional management model: always necessary, but essential in the current situation

From a healthcare perspective, 2022 has been a peculiar year, as all have been since the pandemic entered our lives. But this year, as we all know, has been a year of trying to recover the pace of care for patients who are not treated due to Covid-19. This process, given the accumulation of activity generated, requires racking our brains to find alternatives that allow the system to increase its response capacity with the available resources: infrastructure, technological equipment, and, above all, healthcare professionals. In other words, we must be obsessed with achieving the Venturi effect, whether in large projects or small initiatives.

Without a doubt, this objective presents all professionals with the challenge of seamlessly shifting from focusing primarily on a single pathology to increasingly addressing patients with other conditions. At this juncture, the systemic problems that have been dragging on are exploding, necessitating an immediate solution.

These are issues we've read countless articles and reports about, including the high pressure on healthcare professionals, especially in primary care, which often makes it unviable, and the ongoing demand for more doctors and nurses due to shortages.

We need policies and initiatives to retain professionals, who are increasingly seeking employment outside of Spain. We need to promote and streamline the accreditation process for professionals who come from abroad, in order to offset the brain drain, as well as increase the number of training places for medical professionals (via MIR) and nursing professionals, to face a less bleak future for healthcare due to the approaching mass retirements. Furthermore, professionals are demanding an increase in salaries, which they believe are low. This demand has been joined by medical professionals in training as specialists.

If we conduct a sterile analysis, leaving aside value judgments, it is relatively easy to conclude that these problems, and others related to professionals, have a common origin: the absence of a human resources management model in healthcare. This model, as a roadmap or guide for action, must begin with a thorough analysis of the regulatory and legislative framework, seeking loopholes that can be translated into opportunities for improvements in the professional offering.

This must take into account the social reality in which professionals operate, which determines their concerns and their vision of what exciting professional work should be, with a salary policy adaptable to different professional realities and situations, and with recognition of effort and achievement (of merit, in short).

A human resources model that must also be flexible enough to adapt to changes in the healthcare model within which it is framed. Resource planning must be developed to align resources with the healthcare demands of each location and specialty, thereby avoiding the inevitable situations of high work pressure from being temporary rather than systemic, thereby achieving greater systemic equity in healthcare response. Ultimately, and in conclusion, as long as there is no healthcare professional management model that allows the system to be oriented toward generating trust in the professionals themselves, it will never be possible to achieve a patient-oriented healthcare system. This topic will also be widely discussed and analyzed in 2022.