In what ways are HR analytics and artificial intelligence transforming the healthcare sector?

Our Special Issue is focused on the healthcare sector relevant to the Asia Pacific region, including hospitals, aged care facilities, allied health, doctors, nurses, management and administration staff and all services associated with the healthcare industry. There are a range of issues that impact on healthcare including the growing use of health services during the pandemic, emergency situations, complex forms of technology, worker expectations, work intensification, and government reporting requirements. More research needs to be carried out in these issues as well as social policy, the delivery and quality of patient care, gender in the workplace, disability, and management innovation (Cooke and Bartram, 2015; Human Resource Management, 2015, 54, 711). There are high levels of stress due to staff being overworked and experiencing a lack of coping skills (Pariona-Cabrera et al., 2023; Health Care Management Review, 2023, 48, 42), burnout manifestations through emotional exhaustion (Maslach, 2017; Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 2017, 69, 143) which often result in intention to leave (Holland et al., 2019; Applied Nursing Research, 2019, 49, 70; Pariona-Cabrera, Cavanagh and Bartram, 2020; Journal of Advanced Nursing, 2020, 76, 1581; Shao et al., 2023; Human Resource Management Journal, 2023, 33,187). In Australia, more than 70% of 366,000 nurses working in aged care facilities have reported at least one experience of workplace violence during the previous 12 months including physical and verbal violence from residents, relatives, and visitors (Schablon et al., 2018; International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2018, 15, 1274). There are too many managers who rely on underdeveloped HR processes and outdated management perceptions to make decisions about the well-being of healthcare staff. Countries in the Asia-Pacific region are actively seeking partnership projects and new ways to enhance the performance of healthcare staff and their organisations. We have touched on broad issues here and argue it is possible some of the answers can be found in the use of HR analytics and artificial intelligence (AI).