Job Demand for Health Care IT Expanding in 2010 and Beyond
It's not uncommon to hear about the high demand
of medical-related jobs such as nursing. With an aging Baby Boomer population, the
expectation for growing demand in health care jobs is real, according to the
Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor statistics, which predicted "3.2
million new wage and salary jobs between 2008 and 2018, more than any other
industry, largely in response to rapid growth in the elderly population"
in an updated February report. IT is expected to reap some of the benefits of this
health care growth spurt. Evidence from a couple of new reports from health care
IT industry organizations shows demand for health care-related technology jobs
is on the rise.
Hospitals, medical clinics, doctor's offices and
other health care organizations are facing government-mandated deadlines in a
host of areas such as electronic medical records (EMR), clinical systems
and new privacy and medical-coding standards. The U.S. government's 2009
American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) requires that health care
organizations show "meaningful use" of certified health care IT
products if those organizations want to reap the financial subsidies the
government is offering, and that is spurring increased
technology budgets and new job demand.
The Healthcare Information and Management Systems
Society (HIMSS) recently surveyed 398 of its members in January and took
the pulse of IT budgets and the priorities for 2010. Here are some highlights
the report discovered:
"Asked to identify their single IT priority
during the next two years, 42 percent of respondents identified meeting
meaningful use criteria. Many likely will be doing so by implementing clinical
systems: when asked to identify their organization's primary clinical IT focus,
35 percent said it would be ensuring their organization has a fully functional
electronic medical record (EMR) in place and 27
percent said it would focus on installing a computer order entry (CPOE)
system...
"[M]ore than one-third (38 percent) said
government issues were the business issue they felt would have the biggest impact
on healthcare in the next two years, whereas last year, only six percent
thought that was the case. This year's response reflects compliance with new
regulations regarding meaningful use, as well as coding upgrades and claim
processes impacted by ICD-10 (the World Health Organization's International
Classification of Diseases) and the updated version of HIPAA (5010)."
What kind of health IT jobs are needed over the
next five years? Another report by the American Society of Health Informatics
Managers (ASHIM) surveyed 135 currently employed health IT workers and
discovered that application support and training and EMR consulting were the
top two expected areas of IT job growth. That is followed by jobs in desktop
and network support and a range of jobs listed as "other." Those
other jobs include: "audit, compliance, risk analysts, developers, QA,
sdlc positions, clinical analysts, data/information managers, privacy and
security experts, health it managers, integration specialists, it project
managers, it/clinical liaisons, rns with healthcare informatics, business
analysts, software engineers, data architects, transition coordinators."
"While employers are ramping up to adopt
Electronic Health Records (EHR), IT workers are looking to augment their skills
to meet those needs and to effectively communicate their qualifications,"
said ASHIM Senior Vice President Stephanie L. Jones in a Feb. 9 statement. "ASHIM believes it is important to
understand and support the evolving needs of the health care community and will
continue conducting this survey, adjusting questions, to inquire about them."
