Jobs Require Mix of Health Care, Tech Skills
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CompTIA created the health
care IT credential after receiving requests by health care IT clients to
validate the skills of managed service providers who can implement the
transition to EHRs, Gretchen Koch, senior director for workforce development at
CompTIA, told eWEEK.
In addition to CompTIA's
health care IT certificate, its A+ certification prepares tech workers for PC
support, installation, preventative maintenance, networking, security and
troubleshooting, she said.
Tech professionals would
like the credentials to show the skills they've gained in health care IT,
according to Koch.
"What they're saying
they really need and would like to have are industry credentials to help them
validate the skill sets they've gotten through the training courses," Koch
explained.
With the Obama
administration's HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and
Clinical Health) Act offering incentives for "meaningful
use" of electronic health records, workers need a credential program
to show they understand how to implement EHRs according to these government
mandates, she suggested.
"Health IT tech
certification is a combination of health care knowledge and skills you need,
plus any technical skills needed to successfully pay for this transition,"
Koch said.
"People who have the
skill set and are interested in moving into a high-growth area like health IT
can prepare for this exam and pass it and be a good candidate to be hired by
these companies that are growing," she said.
Workers can take the test at
Pearson Vue and Prometric testing centers.
Pearson is the world's largest commercial testing and educational publisher,
according to the company. Meanwhile, Prometric is a division of nonprofit ETS
(Educational Testing Service).
For the exam, trainees will
be asked to solve problems such as how to implement communications protocols
like email, secure chat or FTP in a medical practice.
Other questions may include
how to troubleshoot IT hardware such as PCs, monitors and printers or to
identify commonly used medical terms such as e-prescribing or PACS (picture
archiving and communication system), a technology radiologists use for medical
imaging.
