Communications of the ACM
Healthcare Industry Leads Market in IT Hiring
Credit: Boston.com
As a result of increased federal spending on healthcare and new federal regulations, the healthcare industry is at the forefront of creating new IT jobs. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, IT jobs in healthcare are expected to grow by 20% annually through 2018. In fact, since November 2009, the number of healthcare IT positions has increased by 67%. By some estimates, there are now more than 175,000 healthcare IT jobs in the country, with that number growing steadily.
According to SimplyHired.com, the greatest IT hiring demand is for C-level positions, including CIO and CTO positions. Since 2009, CIO positions in the healthcare field have increased 101% and CTO positions have increased 127%. The rapid pace of hiring means that CIOs from other industries are being hired into healthcare. CIOs and CTOs are given the responsibility of being agents of change, using the lessons learned in other industries to bring the healthcare industry up to speed. Healthcare has been a slow follower in IT adoption, but today is being driven by federal regulations requiring it to roll out electronic health records and to implement best practices in care through standardized medicine.
Jobs in healthcare IT administration are also seeing strong growth, according to SimplyHired.com. Since 2009, database administration jobs have grown by 94%; network administration positions have grown by 64%; system administration jobs have increased 43%, and storage administration positions have grown by 37%. In terms of sheer numbers of positions, developers lead with more than 6,000 job listings, or a 65% increase since 2009, followed by system analysts with more than 2,000 jobs, or a 35% increase. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics states on its website that through 2018, employment of medical records and health information technicians will lead in healthcare IT job growth. With the increasing use of electronic health records, more technicians will be needed to complete the new responsibilities associated with electronic data management.
From Computerworld
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