In this episode of Work in Progress, Jennifer Goldsack, CEO of the Digital Medicine Society, joins me from CES 2023 – the Consumer Electronics Show – earlier this month to discuss how technology is changing the skills needed in one of the most in-demand industries: health care.

From nurses accessing digital medical records to checkups via Zoom to interpreting flows and streams of data, nearly everyone who's recently received health care has been touched by digital health care, even if that technology is out of view.

CEO Jennifer Goldsack tells me that the nonprofit Digital Medicine Society, or DiMe, is on a mission to advance ethical, equitable, and safe use of this digital technology to redefine health care and improve lives.

She explains the digitization of health care is transforming the way the industry cares for patients and the way the medical profession literally works. In other words, all health care work is digital.

"When was the last time you saw a job opening for a digital marketing consultant? It just doesn't exist anymore. When was the last time we talked about digital in business? It doesn't exist. Digital is the tool, the resources, the platforms that now power different industries. All digital medicine is, is high-quality, trustworthy digital tools that we deploy in the service of better caring for people," Goldsack tells me.

Doctors, nurses, medical technicians – all rely on technology to treat patients. But Goldsack says it's important to note that innovations in the field have broadened the opportunities in the industry. The demand for tech-savvy workers is bottomless.

"I feel really strongly that digital health is the most interdisciplinary field there is. From citizen scientists and cybersecurity experts to physicists and engineers who are making these chips to data scientists, product experts, clinical scientists, clinical care providers, health care executives, payers, regulators, funders, investors – they all have a part to play in shaping this industry and reimagining what it means to care for people in the digital era," she says.

"Every single one of us working in the field has to take seriously our responsibility to build tools that actually help, that address high areas of unmet need for different populations."

Software developers and engineers are helping build these news tools and Goldsack says attracting this tech talent to health care is a key initiative.

"There is an increased demand for those individuals across all industries. What is going to cause the really talented software engineer who builds high caliber algorithms to come into an industry where they can care for people as opposed to go and sell clicks somewhere else for a different paycheck?

"It's interesting because we see those big tech companies with that in-house talent coming into the health care environment. I think if we can continue to hold as our North Star our shared responsibility to care for people, all people, it's only going to be a good thing."

There are shortages of health care workers with the right skills all across the industry and the country. Listen to the podcast to discover the three-pronged approach Digital Medicine Society is employing to help employers develop the pipeline of talent they need to help meet their goals – both for patient care and for their businesses.

Episode 258: Jennifer Goldsack, CEO, Digital Medicine SocietyHost & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNationProducer: Larry BuhlExecutive Producers: Joan Lynch and Melissa PanzerTheme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4.0Download the transcript for this podcast here.You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts