This week’s episode of “WisBusiness: the Podcast” is with Dr. John Raymond, president and CEO of the Medical College of Wisconsin.
Raymond shares his perspective on the state’s health care workforce challenges as well as efforts to address them, public health trends in the post-pandemic era, health care research and more.
“We’re facing somewhat of a crisis in the health care workforce, in part accelerated by the pandemic and burnout that people are experiencing,” he said. “Our nursing workforce and the physician workforce were inadequate before the pandemic, and we’ve had many retirements and people choosing to pursue non-health care-related job opportunities.”
Raymond highlights efforts by MCW and the UW School of Medicine and Public Health to address the physician shortage over the past decade.
“We’re both turning our attention now to the non-physician workforce, because the shortage of health care workers extends beyond doctors and nurses,” he said. “It really goes across the entire spectrum.”
Raymond says public health has “come under attack” due to decisions made during the COVID-19, noting the interface between health care and politics “has become blurred.” And he said fragmentation of public health infrastructure poses an additional challenge, noting Milwaukee alone has about 12 health departments.
“They work well together, but having so many different structures makes it difficult to respond to a public health crisis,” he said.
Meanwhile, further developments in AI could have a massive impact on personalized health care for patients and health data analysis, Raymond said.
“As we go forward, customizing research to the specific populations and the disparities that they’re burdened with is a real opportunity for Wisconsin to be a health care leader,” he said.
Listen to the podcast below, sponsored by UW-Madison:
