Where are IT
jobs going to be over the next two years? There are a number of expectations,
including a whole lot more in Web application development, including social
media, enterprise software and a host of mobile applications for
Internet-enabled devices such as the iPhone and competitors.
Another area
expected to have growth is in health care, specifically in electronic medical
records (EMRs).
Speech recognition may speed electronic medical record adoption. Read more here.
With a large
economic stimulus package behind it, the EMR
market is expected to grow in major ways with a $20 billion infusion from the
Health Information Technology Act. As detailed in an article at
NWjobs.com (affiliated with the Seattle Times), the EMR
market for job growth will run the spectrum from technical sales to training to
programming. From the article:
The Bureau of
Labor Statistics says employment for medical records and health information
technicians is expected to grow faster than average for all occupations, with
an 18 percent increase through 2016. Within the field there are 125 job titles
in more than 40 settings, says Gretchen Murphy, director of University of Washington
programs in health information management.
The companies
that make and sell EMR
software are a good starting point for employment. Jobs can run the gamut from
sales to training to project management.
EMR
sales careers can range from entry-level telemarketers with base pay in the
$30,000s to the six-figure field sales positions.
Little travel is
required for mid-level sales positions. “For smaller deals, a lot of that can
be sold just over the Web, so we do a presentation over the Web using Live
Meeting,” says [Malcolm] Hooper [operations manager for Practice Partner]. “That’s how we engage the doctors and the practices …
and show them our products. That’s the principal way we sell to small practices
[of] one to five doctors.”
There will be some occupations in the EMR
space needing a medical background, particularly in office work flow, the
article said. Expect job growth in areas of system integration and middleware
to handle the translation, as well as storage. From a Medical News post referencing
the growth of technology in the market:
According to Frost & Sullivan
estimates, the Health Information Technology (HIT)
market (by revenue) in 2008, in APAC
(Southeast Asia, China,
Japan
and Australia)
was close to USD5.04 billion with an annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.8 percent
from 2005-2008. Although the APACHIT
market represents currently only 2.1 percent of the total healthcare market, it
is very likely that the figure could double if not triple that in the next 10
years.
As with any
newer technology that will collect information, there are serious data
migration issues to consider, not to mention cost. From a CNN Money
article on the subject:
Implementing an EHR system from
paper to hospital-wide integration costs anywhere from $50 million to $100
million, say experts. That includes not just the hardware and software, but
also the service contract, networking with a national data center and lost
productivity as hospitals teach physicians how to use the new system.
That's difficult
for hospitals in the midst of a credit crunch and economic downturn, and
especially onerous for small doctors' offices with just a handful of staff and
patients. But there are other options.
One such
alternative is the government's open-source EHR system, called Vista,
which is already used by the Department of Veterans Affairs. A commercialized
version of the Vista
software was developed by health care tech firm Medsphere, which said
installation and service costs of the system average less than $1 million a
year over the first five years, after which point annual service costs range
between $150,000 to $700,000, depending on the size of the hospital.
"We have
contracts with the entire public health system of West
Virginia, in which eight
hospitals will pay us a total of $9 million over five years," said
Medsphere Chief Executive Mike Doyle. "Compare that to the University of West Virginia,
which just paid $90 million to a proprietary EHR vendor. If Obama is serious
about this, he won't be able to do it $90 million at a time."
But not every system will be able to
connect to the open-source solution, suggests the CNN article. Regardless, the
mandate within the Health Information Technology Act will help those vendors
selling these products, and it means jobs for those having to use the new systems.
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IT Management News & Reviews 
