WorkInHealth Foundation

The challenge

 

We initiated the WorkInHealth Foundation to address the evident and growing skills and talent gaps within the healthcare industry across Europe.

The talent shortage threatens the sustainability and growth potential of the healthcare industry. Therefore, addressing it is of key strategic importance for us.

Although talent shortages exist across the board, there are particular skillsets where new and emerging roles are leading to exponential demand. These include digital, commercial, and innovation settings.

The goal

The healthcare sector offers a meaningful and fulfilling career, paved with competitive remuneration and excellent working conditions. Plus, the chance to be at the forefront of cutting-edge research, technology, and innovation.

Yet, data demonstrates that healthcare companies are not visible amongst the most attractive employers in the eyes of talent.[1] The WorkInHealth Foundation will support in addressing this reputational challenge and promote healthcare as a sector in which talent can thrive.

If Europe is to maintain a vibrant and sustainable healthcare sector that can lead in innovation, we must rise to the challenge of recruiting and educating the best talent.” – Celine Carrera, Director of Education at EIT Health and WorkInHealth Foundation Chair.

Our approach

As the largest community of health innovators in Europe, we are uniquely placed to address the healthcare talent shortage.

Our education arm is a key European player in the upskilling and reskilling of talent, according to the capabilities required to fuel healthcare innovation. For example, biomedical engineering, health and medical data analytics, and much more.

Our network gives us unique power to tap into both recruiters and candidates, matching talent across the sector. It also allows us to support in upskilling and reskilling, increasing the volume of talent in the areas of greatest demand.

Our focus

The WorkInHealth Foundation plans to work across four main activity areas:

  • Anticipate – utilising business intelligence to get ahead of skill needs 
  • Attract – transforming the health industry with new talent, EU-wide
  • Train – future-proofing through tailored upskilling and reskilling programmes
  • Match – leveraging AI platforms and services to align talent with employers

The BeWell project

The WorkInHealth Foundation supports EIT Health’s role in the Erasmus+ project BeWell, a “blueprint alliance for a future health workforce strategy on digital and green skills”.

The BeWell project (2022-2026) aims to build a movement of healthcare stakeholders that support and contribute to the development, implementation and upscaling of a strategy for the upskilling and reskilling of the European health workforce.

EIT Health will contribute to the skills intelligence, play a key role in piloting the delivery of training on emerging occupational profiles and input into the design of the evaluation methodology of the skills strategy and evaluate its impact.

Become a donor​

Collective action is required to address the skills gap and attract talent to the industry. We are looking for corporate donors to work with us to build the WorkInHealth Foundation and shape the future of healthcare.

Join us today to play a constructing role in the WorkInHealth Foundation. Become a donor and support the acceleration of upskilling and reskilling of talent, boosting the growth and competitiveness of the industry.

Contact celine.carrera@eithealth.eu or urska.bux@eithealth.eu to learn more and become a donor.

[1] Universum, 2021. World’s Most Attractive Employers 2021. [ebook] Online: Universum, pp.40, 41, 42, 43. Available at: https://universumglobal.com/wmae2021/

Our reports

The first publication of the WorkinHealth Foundation’s skills observatory, “Addressing skills needs in the European health sector” is now live. Our new report is a collaboration with the European Investment Fund (EIF) and leverages data from EIF’s flagship VC survey, a study of 472 VC fund managers across 371 EU-headquartered VC firms. Prepared for EIT Health by Ernst & Young, the report explores skill gaps and investor attitudes around these within the European health innovation sector. It offers practical solutions and strategies to address these skills gaps to help organisations to build a capable and adaptable workforce.

Read the report now