Reimagining Health Workforce Models for the AI Era with Susan Nancarrow

Susan Nancarrow shares her journey from podiatrist to healthcare workforce revolutionary, explaining how invisible structures maintain inefficiencies while restricting innovation. She explains the need for healthcare workforce transformation, challenging outdated professional boundaries that have defined our system since the Industrial Revolution. 

• Healthcare's professional boundaries are among the most socially entrenched structures in our society
• Current systems create unnecessary bottlenecks, such as requiring GP referrals to access specialized mental health services
• Artificial intelligence is democratizing medical knowledge, shifting power from practitioners to patients
• Traditional workforce pipelines are being disrupted as AI takes over entry-level tasks
• Dual career pathways can recognize skills developed on-the-job while creating progression opportunities
• Communities of practice across countries enable leaders to share challenges and build confidence to drive change
• More flexible workforce models organized around competencies rather than professional identities can better serve patient needs

The impact of AI on professional roles

From Bureaucratic Closure to Algorithmic Governance: AI and the Neo-Weberian Crisis of the Professions

How we unpack the professions through a managerialist framework - which could result in the end of the professions as we currently know them

The Two-Sided Ledger: Managerialism, AI and the Unmaking of the Professions 

The Reimagined Workforce podcast is brought to you by Workforce Transformations Australia Pty. Ltd.
All opinions expressed are the speaker's and not the organisations they represent.
If you have a story about a workforce transformation to share and would like to be a guest on this podcast, please contact us at kathhume@workforcetransformations.com.au.
Connect with Kath Hume on LinkedIn

Purchase Kath's book Learn Solve Thrive: Making a difference that matters in a fast and complex world:
Learn Solve Thrive: Making a difference that matters in a fast and complex world : Hume, Kathryn Lee: Amazon.com.au: Books

Chapters

• 0:00 Career Pathways for Support Workers
• 1:16 Introduction to Susan Nancarrow
• 3:16 From Podiatrist to Workforce Researcher
• 8:52 Challenging Entrenched Healthcare Structures
• 14:35 Inefficient Healthcare Pathways
• 18:11 How AI is Disrupting Healthcare Models
• 26:55 Rethinking Skills and Competencies
• 32:45 Navigating Workforce Transformation
• 36:45 Communities of Practice for Global Change
• 42:33 Episode Closing