The HR Community Podcast
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Civitas Talent is excited to bring you a series of podcasts dedicated to the HR community. This is a space where you can learn best-practice solutions from HR community leaders, with host Shane O'Neill.
Whether you’re a CEO, HR executive or operating across the wider HR sector - this podcast is for you!
The HR Community Podcast
AI in Healthcare: How Technology is Reshaping HR and Patient Care with Rebecca Donaldson
Rebecca Donaldson, Chief People Officer at Ramsey Healthcare, brings her unique blend of legal expertise and HR leadership to a fascinating discussion about the transformation of the HR profession. With experience spanning major organizations like Qantas and ABC, Rebecca offers invaluable insights from her journey through highly regulated industries to her current role overseeing 36,000 employees across Australia's largest private healthcare provider.
The conversation explores how HR has evolved from being mere "policy police" to strategic business partners influencing organizational culture and even public policy. Rebecca articulates why today's HR leaders need strong commercial acumen: "CPOs at the top table now don't just pipe up about people issues or talent or performance, but we're expected to understand the business in its entirety." She shares practical examples of how HR professionals can demonstrate ROI and use data effectively while leveraging their natural storytelling abilities to create meaningful narratives.
Rebecca's perspective on artificial intelligence reveals both excitement and pragmatism about its applications in healthcare. From ambient listening technology that improves clinical documentation to AI-powered tools that streamline HR processes, she envisions technology freeing HR professionals from administrative burdens while enhancing both patient and employee experiences. Yet she acknowledges the inherent risks, emphasizing the importance of establishing appropriate guardrails without stifling innovation.
Whether you're an HR professional looking to elevate your strategic impact, a healthcare leader navigating workforce challenges, or simply interested in how technology is reshaping organizations, this episode offers valuable takeaways about the changing landscape of HR. Connect with Rebecca on LinkedIn to continue the conversation about strategic HR leadership in complex, regulated environments.
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Welcome to the HR Community Podcast. My name is Shane O'Neill, founder of Sila Tass Talent, the HR and HSE recruitment community. Each episode we will host HR leaders and discuss their journey and discover best practice HR solutions across the HR industry. Whether you're a CEO, hr executive or operating across the wider HR space, this podcast is for you. Please like and subscribe, and don't forget to comment and share your views. Enjoy the episode. Hi everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the HR Community Podcast. This morning I'm joined with Rebecca Donaldson. Rebecca is the Chief People Officer for Ramsey Healthcare. Good morning, bec.
Speaker 2:How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good. I'm good. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. I know things are very busy in not only HR but also in healthcare at the moment, so I know time is precious, so I really appreciate it. We've been sort of teeing up this podcast over the last couple of months and I'm sure the listeners will really enjoy the conversation. But before we delve into it, tell us a little bit more about Rebecca Donaldson and who you were. Tell us a bit about your role. Tell us a bit about your current employer.
Speaker 2:Okay, rebecca Donaldson, long-standing HR or employment law professional. I've only ever really worked in the HR or employment law space. I've had a tendency to be attracted to businesses or organisations where there's a high level of unionisation and complexity around industrial relations. I sort of got my first really senior gig at a relatively young age with an organization that was then City Rail. I have worked at the ABC, qantas, and now I'm at Ramsey Health Ramsey Health, which I honestly hadn't heard of until I was approached about this role. So, for your listeners' benefits, you may well have been in a Ramsey hospital without knowing it, but we are 76 hospitals within Australia. We're 36,000 people within Australia, 90,000 globally. We're the largest provider of private healthcare within Australia. We have hospitals, psychology, pharmacy, allied health, the full gambit in terms of physiotherapy and rehabilitation, and now we're moving more towards that notion of hospital in the home. So we're the biggest and the best from a private health care provider in australia that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no doubt, no doubt, if you're. If you're there, rebecca, the funny thing you mentioned there you'd not. You'd not heard of ramsey before. I had heard of ramsey, but now I I'm starting to see the brand everywhere, and that's always the way, isn't it? Like I didn't realize there was the pharmacies and that side of it too, so, which is pretty cool. Before it all began, I'll sort of take everyone back and your journey. I know you touched on it there, but you were a practicing solicitor. Tell us a little bit about that. What sort of motivated you to get into that and obviously then transition into more of the HR side of things?
Speaker 2:I started in HR. I did that and this was much to my parents' chagrin. I left school in year 11 and started working, fell into HR, traveled for a couple of years, and that was back in the days when you could take leave without pay from your job and then come back to it. Came back into HR, travelled for a couple of years, and that was back in the days when you could take leave without pay from your job and then come back to it. Came back into HR, had to go to university. I come from a family of academics and they were mortified that I hadn't been to university.
Speaker 2:Went to university as a mature age student, did an arts degree majoring in industrial relations and political science, and was working in HR all that time and started to realize that a lot of what we were doing had much more of a kind of legal bent or component to it than what I had initially anticipated.
Speaker 2:I started working full-time, studying part-time. I got to the end of my arts degree and thought if I leave now, I'll never study again, so I thought it better to just keep going. So I went on to do a master's of law. I had my kids in amongst that and was just provided with an opportunity from a wonderful woman that I'd worked with in the past who needed a part-time workplace solicitor looking after safety and workplace relations, and I was job sharing with another lawyer and I, honestly, if you'd said to me, law is a great profession to do after you've had babies and on a job sharing with another lawyer, and, honestly, if you'd said to me, law is a great profession to do after you've had babies and on a job sharing basis, I'd tell you you had rocks in your head until I did it and it actually was the perfect return to work job.
Speaker 2:The lovely thing about working as a solicitor is your case notes, and all your notes have to be up to date. You have to be on top of everything and everything has a really logical continuity, particularly when it involves litigation, so it's really right for handing over to someone else to pick up when you're not there. So once our client group got comfortable with the fact that they could either have Teresa or Beck, depending on which day of the week it was and that took some education it actually really lent itself well to job sharing and part-time work. So I did that for a few years and then back into the throes of HR.
Speaker 1:Once my kids were a little bit older, fantastic, and you've obviously worked in a lot of highly regulated industries from I mean you touched on some of them earlier from aviation to healthcare. Talk to us a little bit about that, particularly, I guess, from a HR perspective and even from a legal component, because I'd imagine there's a pretty transferable blueprint there when it comes to a highly regulated industry and a highly unionized industry.
Speaker 2:I think that's true. I think, and whenever I do any of those personality assessments or diagnostics, weirdly I'm not cautious, so it's really interesting, or I tend to be a little bit of a risk taker, so it's really intriguing to me and I need to unpack it at a time when I'm feeling more self-reflective as to why I'm attracted to that sort of work. I have always worked on transport, aviation, healthcare, as you say, highly regulated areas, always worked transport, aviation, healthcare, as you say, highly regulated areas. I wonder if it's just a case of you get used to it and you don't know what you don't know if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:I think what I personally bring to it and I think is quite a good and nice combination of the legal and the people is that idea of I start with the legal or the logical. I always go straight there and sometimes that's really useful, particularly when there are emotions involved or highly volatile situations or the potential for people to be hurt, upset or whatever the case may be. I start there, I look at what's logical, I look at what's appropriate or what is kind of compliance, I guess, and then I overlay with the people stuff and then I try and then I take a more pragmatic approach, once I factor in the realities of the individuals involved or the broader context, if that makes sense. But it gives you a good grounding or a good place to start and then work from there. Too old now to think that everything is black and white, and I recognize that it's not, but it's good to have a place to start when you're making assessments or decisions or looking at the way to take something forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's really interesting when you've had that self reflection on yourself as well, not being too overly cautious, because I think your experience at legal would obviously bring a lot of risk management and compliance to the table. But I think it's important not to be too cautious at times, particularly in a HR leadership role where you kind of have to make that decision and sometimes you've got to trust your gut and take a risk as well.
Speaker 2:I think that's true. Otherwise things will just grind to a halt or you end up sort of spinning your wheels, and I think we've definitely seen a movement within the HR profession away from just being the policy police, if you like, and one into where we can influence more around the cultural change required in organisations. And that requires a level of I guess I don't want to say intuition, because I think that downplays it. I think it's actually just the skills that you acquire by working with and for and around a lot of people, and you do learn to read the room well, you learn to influence better and you learn to understand what is paramount from a compliance perspective and the areas where you can take a little bit of a risk.
Speaker 1:Definitely, yeah, and are you seeing it as well, rebecca? Obviously you're touching it there as well, with HR traditionally being more of a risk. Definitely, yeah, and are you seeing it as well, rebecca? Obviously you're touching it there as well, with HR traditionally being more of a policy-focused role and now it's evolved. Obviously there's a lot of legislation changes happening with wage compliance, rights, disconnect, psychosocial safety. Are you seeing that shift now in businesses where HR are implementing these policies but in a more strategic way, where you know there is that ability to influence? You know we are upskilling the workforce. You know it's a bit more of a strategic, I guess, approach now than we've just created the new policy. Let's roll it out.
Speaker 2:Definitely. And again, I can remember conversations early on in my career and the whole idea was that if HR did well, we'd do ourselves out of jobs because managers would be so amazing and leaders would be. You know, these amazing, full and wholesome leaders. And here we are, circa 25 years later, and HR profession's bigger than it's ever been and we get together all the time and the issues remain, I think, even more relevant and certainly more complex.
Speaker 2:I think we're influencing within our organisations, but also externally, when I think about the involvement of HR professionals in things like the Business Council of Australia or at forums where we're talking about public policy as opposed to internal policy, where we're having a profound impact on the shaping and drafting of legislation at a strategic level rather than just driving the implementation within our organisations. I think CPOs at the top table now we don't just pipe up about people issues or talent or performance, but we're expected to have commercial acumen and to understand the business and to have views on the business in its entirety. The best leadership teams are ones where we're not siloed and only having a view on the areas for which we have a direct remit, but where, as a team, we're focused on the business fully and the strategy of the business and the people strategy fits in within that. Rather than is off something, something off to the side, policing policy and being the moral police.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a really good overview and I think you know I recall many years ago having these kinds of conversations and there was this real push for HR to get a seat at the table and you know that seat has just evolved as well to, in some organizations, several seats, which is great. And yeah, the commercial acumen bit I think is so critical because the business needs to see an ROI and I think the business needs to really unpack okay, how much is this going to cost us and what is the overall ROI? And you know, if that cost is financial, this going to cost us and what is the overall ROI, and if that cost is financial or if the cost is actually, we're going to lose people, good people. I think the business are a bit more invested as well.
Speaker 2:Great. It's bad news for those of us that did arts or law because we really didn't want to do maths or stats. We can't get away from it. Data is king, but I think we're. Hr adds to that is we are, as a profession, generally good storytellers and great at creating a narrative and bringing to life data and putting the people around that data. Data is only as good as what you do with it, and I think that's where HR really do excel. We can really shine in taking data, building some insights and creating a narrative for the organization around that data and why it matters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's interesting you touch on data there as well, because a lot of the leaders that we've had on the podcast or even in some of the workshops we've been running those that have had the most success I guess is the best way of putting it the most success when it comes to transformation or future work, know future work, ready strategies. It's all been centered around data understanding the data, using the data and implementing that into your strategy. Is that something that you've sort of you know personally started to really get invested in?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, and have for some time and I you know I can't stand an Excel spreadsheet, trust me, but so many organizations run on them. But, as I said, it's kind of bringing and I have to remind myself of this as well, because my eyes do roll back in my head when I think about yet another Power BI dashboard. But it's about taking that and making it real. Making it real for people, making it real for ourselves and I think you mentioned earlier demonstrating the ROI on HR initiatives and programs is vital. That's a game changer for us. So it's no longer just being, you know, the thing that we always used to say is, oh well, it'll reduce attrition, and then we try and put a number on what attrition costs and we try and point to why diversity initiatives matter, because they're the right thing to do. Now we can drive those conversations with very real data and demonstrate the success of our programs and our initiatives, and I think as well, rebecca.
Speaker 1:it's interesting because not that there's any industry or organisation that is, I guess, less important than another, but healthcare in particular, I mean it important than another. But healthcare in particular, I mean it's up there with one of the most critical, if not the most critical sector in Australia and possibly the globe. But there are discussions around you know clinical shortages and talent shortages and that real competition for talent. So do you think that kind of strategic HR element with the data will really start to help, not just Ramsey but healthcare as a sector, I guess, start to plan for the future?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, and I wish I'd nailed strategic workforce planning better than I have. If I'm really honest, it's an evolving thing for us and I've yet to see it done really, really well, and I think it means a lot of different things to a lot of people. For us, it's the right skills mix in the right hospitals or the right facilities at the right time. But where I do feel like I've got some more work to do is what that workforce looks like once you throw in the technological change that's coming our way Now. Clinical staff will forever be necessary, but the number and quantity of those clinical staff and where they are actually located and where they're appointed will absolutely change. The beauty of Ramsey is we have a global reach. The nursing shortage is real and it's real globally, but we do have the advantage of being able to move resources around the globe. Again, we need to get better at that and we need to try and exert some influence around the visa and migration hurdles to that, but we are getting better at facilitating more moves around the globe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great, and I'll be first to admit I'm by no means an expert in this space, but I am truly interested in it. You've been on panels and attended some events well in recent years, but throughout your career, but in recent years and there's been a lot of talk around AI and technology, bec, talk to us a little bit about that. I mean, where is your head at with it all when it comes to AI and sort of what are you sort of? What are you seeing or hearing around the traps?
Speaker 2:I've gone from being sceptical to really excited and did it relatively quickly. The excitement for me is twofold one in the clinical space and one in the HR space. In the clinical space, when you think about the number of interactions that a person or an individual or a patient has with its various medical providers or clinicians, they can be numerous depending on their particular journey. But if you think about a standard cancer patient, the interactions with the number of people throughout the span of their treatment, it's within the hundreds, and so the note-taking and the documentation associated with that is next level. So to be able to use ambient listening to capture those conversations and record really good, comprehensive notes and then spit out a summary that you can hand over to a patient who may, during the course of that conversation, being quite upset. Or, you know, you get to that point where you stop listening because you've just heard cancer and you don't listen much beyond that because you've leapt to the future and you know you're panicking about what that may be.
Speaker 2:To be able to take away a summary of that conversation, digest it, share it with your loved ones, I think is groundbreaking and not rely on. And you know all the generalizations about doctors handwriting. They are true and and that sometimes that's just because they've got terrible handwriting and often it's because they're writing in a hurry. But to be able to do some of the amazing things with ambient listening and ai, note taking and stuff, I think is next level we'll add to the patient experience, we'll add to the worker experience, we'll add to accuracy and we'll improve safety.
Speaker 2:So I'm really excited about that. In the HR space, I think it's an opportunity to get rid of some of the kind of more mundane administrative process work that we do around recruitment, around investigations, around policy review, around recruitment, around investigations, around policy review. We've recently been using it to take some of our policies and have used AI to create some fantastic training outlines which we can then, you know, use to develop, sort of and improve our compliance training.
Speaker 2:We've all had the horrendous online compliance training experience where you start and you click through you know four hours of the essential and very dreary online training before you commence in a workplace. To be able to sort of zhuzhi that up a little bit, make it faster, make it more succinct and, more importantly, change it really quickly whenever a policy changes, I think is only going to make life more interesting for HR professionals. It means we can start to do the stuff that we don't have time to do because we're burdened by the administrative.
Speaker 1:So I feel really optimistic about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, good, good, and I know we had a similar conversation before, so you know I'd agree. I'm definitely a big advocate as well, and I think as well. It's interesting when we talk about these kind of things. We talk about the evolution of HR and the workforce and the demands, and I truly feel like AI is not the only approach, but probably one of the key approaches that we can start to implement into our business to support that demand, Because it's just unbelievable, even from a recruitment perspective.
Speaker 1:The demand is out there for talent, for communication as well. You know, if a candidate applies to Rome, they've not heard back in 24 hours. It's almost like you've lost them due to experience. So it's that ability to keep up, I guess, with the demand. And then, yeah, we use a lot of data as well. I'm not a big fan of spreadsheets, but luckily we've got tools now that can spit out a spreadsheet in a couple of seconds and then it doesn't take me long to sort of get my head around it. So I enjoy more the storytelling part of that than I do doing the analytical side. But yeah, we've got our team that do the analytical stuff in line with the technology and the AI and stuff that's available, so I think it's really cool.
Speaker 2:You're fine. Can I ask you a question? Shane Do you find that people talk about AI skills and capability as part of their sell when they're pulling together their resume or their skills and qualities for a role. Is that something that people hone in on now?
Speaker 1:You know, what's interesting in HR? Not really, and I think not really should be not enough. I feel like, even though it's not a completely new element, I feel like HR are maybe only starting to go through this exploratory stage. So in the future, absolutely, I think organizations will have AI as part of their critical requirements for any HR job description, critical requirements for any HR job description, talent acquisition probably leverage a little bit more in their CVs, I would say, or talk a little bit more about it.
Speaker 1:But it's interesting, it's a good question, because some of the meetups and the workshops and stuff we do, you've got one half of the room who are a bit like oh, I don't really like CVs that come through that are AI generated or that touch on AI. I really want that human element, whereas others are like I just like the fact that they've invested the time to utilize the technology and the AI and stuff that's available to them. So I think it's we're going through that debate at the moment. But me personally, look, I definitely think that it should be talked about more in people's experience and profiles because, um, I mean, weirdly enough, I seen the other day on linkedin someone was looking for a change manager and it said like dash ai. And I was like, well, that's cool, because that's going to be the next sort of transformation that we go through.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I don't see enough of it, but, um, I think look, using it in the right way as well. I think this is where people really need to start leveraging the research that's out there, start to learn about what AI tools you can use for your for example, your job application or your resume but then really assess what it's actually creating for you based on your information, and really tailor and customize it and bring that authenticness to it, because we see it all the time. You see a generic cover letter and a CV that's come through, that's just been, you know, put through the ringer on ChatGVT and you know it's never going to really impress you that much, whereas if someone uses it and then has their own flair and authenticness to it, I think that's a totally different topic.
Speaker 2:I do wonder, because I don't think HR professionals. I don't think we're very good at blowing our own trumpet. We're crap at, we're really bad at, seeking salary reviews. We're great at telling other people how to do it, we're really good at advising other people on how to make their resume look fantastic or how to build networks and promote themselves, but I think it's a gross generalisation. But I think as a profession, we're quite kind of humble and we take a step back rather than forward, which I think is intriguing it is, yeah, it is so intriguing, yeah, and look, we may get better at that.
Speaker 1:I think I agree with you. It's a bit more of a humble profession at times and maybe we just feel it's our duty at times and it kind of goes overhead.
Speaker 2:We've always been the support, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah, for sure, a hundred percent, yeah, and I think that's that mindset change because I'd imagine, look if there's any CFO listening to this huge advocate for what you do. But like CFO is very, very easy to demonstrate and talk about how much revenue they've saved the business or whatever. Absolutely, I think we should take a leaf out of their book. But yeah, it's interesting Some of the workshops we've been doing as well. I think they're very much like private dining. It's a couple of hours, we unpack different topics. It's amazing to hear some of the stories where some of the HR leaders in the room are really driving transformation and technology and AI.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I think over time, hopefully, they'll be a bit more vocal on what they've done, because I think the more we all share with each other now, it'll just enable the next. Some people come to our workshops with that same view that you and I talked about earlier being a bit sceptical and we're not really sure if it's going to do anything or change anything. And then, you know, towards the end they're like yeah, that was a really interesting discussion and now I'm a bit more keen to explore and I think it's just that journey that people take where I don't know. I'm a bit like this too. It's like if I don't understand something I'm not going to be as interested in it. But when I start to learn a bit more about it, how it can enable my role and our business and stuff, then I'm a bit more invested.
Speaker 1:I couldn't agree more Awesome, awesome. Now I know we are tied for time, so I won't keep you too much longer. I guess the last sort of question I'd have for you really, in fact it's more of a curveball, but we talked a lot about, we talked a lot there and we talked a lot about sort of the past and the present, but sort of looking into the future. Obviously we talked about how AI can really enable our functions. Do you see any, I guess, challenges or risks I'm putting on your legal hat here again, but any sort of potential risks ahead for, you know, the adoption of AI or even the adoption of some technology out there.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I think it's got risk written all over it and I don't think I think the issue about the sort of pace of change with technology is this constant quandary about how quickly you get on board and adopt, because you don't want to be left behind, but without the appropriate guardrails, governance and policy settings. It's this sort of tussle between the two. You want to do the right thing, you don't want to expose the organization or its workforce, but you don't want to be left behind and you don't want to shut down innovation and great ideas. And I think that ongoing kind of dilemma or push and pull is just a reality of working life now in a world where technology happens at such pace. I think maybe what we have to be better at, or maybe what organisations have to turn their minds to, is either buying in advice or having as part of your teams people who do nothing but keep your eye on that, keep your eye on the future, and who push through and who are tasked with pushing through the necessary policy reform in big organizations like mine, because otherwise we will be left behind.
Speaker 2:It's hugely risky and you know I gave the example of ambient listening and clinical notes.
Speaker 2:Now, if you're a patient to trust that an organization is going to have somewhere in the cloud all that information about you as an individual, your health, sometimes your psychosocial information, information about your family, and to look after it is a massive leap of faith.
Speaker 2:And the first time we get that wrong, I think could potentially be quite. I don't want to overstate it, but if it goes wrong and it goes horribly wrong or falls into the wrong hands, like any cyber risk, then that is potentially quite alarming. But if we don't do it, we're just going to stagnate and stand still and we won't reap the benefits. So I think there will always be this push and pull about how far do we go, how much do we trial it, how much do we let things go in our workforce to do things and how much do we regulate and how many governance frameworks do we put around it? And we have to get those frameworks working faster than what they are at the moment. Hopefully, through doing more and more of it we'll get better at it, but we absolutely have to have an eye on that stuff.
Speaker 1:Definitely yeah, and I think trial and error is going to be critical. I mean trial and error I would approach with a double edged sword, just given some of the examples you shared. I don't think I would do trial and error with someone's medical records, but I think you know trying and testing certain applications and platforms and more, I guess, less risky areas of the business yeah, you touched on cyber there as well. I think you know that is definitely critical. I think critical for any business now.
Speaker 2:I mean, as the world of technology and AI and whatnot is evolving, it has to be the number one risk for most organisations, I think, at the moment wouldn't it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I definitely think so, and you know, as, as it's all, as it's evolving and it's hot on the agenda, so is the, the, the darker side of things. You know there are professional hacking organizations and and and businesses all across the world and you know they're looking at this as an opportunity to, to try and tap into something there as well. So it's about setting up the the barriers, I suppose or the the the exterior walls, so you can really start to play around with it internally. But yeah, that was really good. I am mindful of the time, like I said earlier, so I won't give you too much longer. Bec, thank you so much for coming on. That was amazing and I hope, and I'm sure everyone that was listening enjoy the conversation. Feel free to reach out to me or Beck or connect with Beck on LinkedIn if you want to sort of evolve the conversation. But no, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Have a lovely day.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to the HR Community Podcast. Remember to like and subscribe and share your views and comments below. This podcast was brought to you by Civitas Talent, the HR and HSC recruitment community. Whether you're a candidate looking for a new role or organization looking to secure brand new talent for your team, please get in touch with us today, thank you.
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