The Sick Care Gig Economy

The US is increasingly becoming a gig economy. Part-timers and freelancers are creating portfolios, not careers. Corporate loyalty is dead and only a fraction of employed workers are engaged. The American Dream is on life support, if not dead. The fundamental future of work is changing, wages remain stagnant for most, and the workforce of the future needs new skills and new ways to get them other than buying into a broken higher education model that comes with a questionable value proposition for most and a very high price tag for all.

The opportunity is big in Sick Care to educate, train, recruit, and develop low-income workers using new teaching technologies. In addition, it is not just the lower skilled workers that are getting into the act. There are more 1099 Docs too.

The Sick Care workforce of the future is being created every day, but several things are becoming clearer:

1. Digital health will create jobs that have yet to be defined.

2. There is a gap for workers that can't be filled by present offerings.

3. Wage stagnation will persist until we figure out ways to replace exported manufacturing jobs that are unlikely to return.

4. We need new business models for education that starts in K-12.

5. Pension and benefits packages will need to conform to the new gig economy.

6. Medicine will have to change its mindset and approach to using paramedical personnel to help doctors practice at the top their licenses.

7. Market-based learning objectives should drive Sick Care gig learning.

8. We need a different approach to defining competencies and using learning management systems to measure lifelong learning and improvement. Doctors screwed up MOCs and we should not repeat their mistakes.

9. We need to use the experiences and insights of low-wage minorities to deliver care, particularly when it comes to using community based resources to manage the crushing burden of non-communicable diseases.

10. New gig workers need to have an entrepreneurial mindset.

The Sick Care work force is changing before our eyes. For many, success in the knowledge economy requires a brain and a computer with WiFi access. It can no longer be sustained by mostly rich white folks wearing white coats. We need to change the mix to close the gaps.