Introducing Digital Mentoring into Outpatient Healthcare Organizations

Background. Mentoring in the healthcare system is a mechanism for onboarding new employees, developing professional competencies, and ensuring the continuity of practical skills. Digital mentoring is a promising direction for developing HR strategy in outpatient healthcare organizations because it combines traditional mentoring methods with digital environment advantages: remote support, online educational resources, video consulting, digital checklists, online monitoring of individual progress, and exchange of experience between departments of a healthcare organization. Objective. To theoretically substantiate the need for introducing digital mentoring into outpatient healthcare organizations and to determine key organizational conditions for its successful implementation in human resource development for primary health care providers. Materials and methods. The author used systematic, organizational and managerial, and competence-based approaches. Using a systematic approach, digital mentoring was viewed as part of the healthcare organization’s HR strategy. The organizational and managerial approach was used to analyze the conditions for integrating digital mentoring in outpatient care. The competence-based approach was used to consider digital mentoring as a tool for strengthening professional and digital competencies of healthcare professionals. Results. Introducing digital mentoring into outpatient healthcare organizations is a core focus area for enhancing HR strategy and quality management in healthcare. Digital transformation in healthcare, complex professional requirements for healthcare professionals, health information system development, as well as the adaptation of young professionals to the heavy workload in primary healthcare all contribute to the importance of digital mentoring. Digital mentoring enables more flexible and consistent support for the mentee, especially in the setting of a fragmented outpatient care structure. However, digital mentoring should not substitute face-to-face professional interactions.

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