<h2>By Alejandro Coca, Head of Business, TrueProfile.io</h2>
<p>The COVID-19 pandemic left a lasting impact on many industries; confronting human beings with an unexpected yet steep learning curve, necessitating adaptation and change. Due to the nature of the pandemic, no sector felt the impact as much as the healthcare industry – the very industry the world was reliant on to manage, contain and help navigate the world out of the immediate threat of the virus.</p>
<p>Healthcare workers have been on the forefront ever since fighting the battle, while their employers and talent managers face a different challenge: attracting and retaining well qualified staff to take on the burgeoning load of patients. Before COVID-19, there were already healthcare worker shortages, but the pandemic exacerbated the situation, with many leaving their employment due to burn out. Many countries are facing an unprecedented demand for healthcare workers and are looking for international recruitment to fill the gaps.</p>
<p>The reality of worker shortages in face of an ever-growing patient load as well as the establishment of new safety protocols have resulted in the demand for enhanced operational swiftness within the industry. International healthcare recruitment tends to be a more difficult undertaking due to the regulatory requirements, as it includes English language examinations and licensing processes that must be completed ahead of relocation. One way to shorten the recruitment process is to conduct the verifications well in advance and store it on the blockchain.</p>
<p>With increased hiring, there is also increased risk for employers. The risk of fraudulent applications increases with the increase of job opportunities available. With the proportional nature of hiring indicating an increase in the number of job opportunities, this leads to a surge in the number of fraudulent applications as well.</p>
<p>While verification of professional information is indisputably the most imperative element in attenuating any possible risk in hiring workers with fraudulent backgrounds, technology can also play an important role in the interview process within healthcare hiring. Especially, for assessing candidates who interview virtually.</p>
<p>From an employers’ point of view, incorrect hiring practices and inadequate employee verification could lead to legal complications but the immutable nature of blockchain mitigates this risk to a great degree. Blockchain technology is essentially a digital ledger of transactions that maintains connected blocks of information. This information cannot be deleted or modified with built-in mechanisms that prevent unauthorized activities.</p>
<p>Additionally, this type of verification lasts for a considerable amount of time thus eliminating an employee’s need to verify their information again for any future job applications. Aside from transparency for every employee, a huge amount of personal information needs to be collected and stored to ensure that their identity, qualifications, and work experience are legitimate. Blockchain plays a critical role in the entire procedural aspect of getting employed by also lending it an element of efficiency.</p>
<p>As HR leaders scramble to hire in an aggressive labor market, speed is of utmost priority and inaccurate qualifications, particularly in the healthcare talent pool, could lead to more problems in the future. A blockchain’s digital ledger technology verifies transactions and records it in a way that makes it virtually impossible for someone to tamper with information.</p>
<p>The main benefits that make this technology so perfectly suited for HR management are trust, privacy, security, data integrity and transparency. While blockchain packs a lot of promise for employers and employees alike, it is still very much in its infancy with greater potential for use in highly regulated sectors like healthcare. Blockchain makes it a possibility for health information systems to work together within and across boundaries to advance the effective delivery of healthcare for individuals and communities.</p>
<p>From automating time-consuming processes to ensuring greater accountability from all parties, blockchain enables a new environment of trust and collaboration – even in the HR space.</p>