Health IT Worker Shortage Worse Than Expected

Battered by growing needs and increasing competition, managers hiring for health IT face a worse shortage than previously expected, according to research by PwC.  Because hiring needs are so acute, many healthcare hiring executives are expecting to change strategies for hiring over the next year, the consulting firm reports.

Right now, 75 percent of providers are currently hiring health IT employees, PwC found. But it’s not the same old same old when it comes to recruiting approaches. Over the next year, more than three-quarters of  health execs expect to shift strategies in hiring, thanks to mounting pressures both internal and external.

These pressures are varied. Seventy-nine percent of those surveyed by PwC expect an increase in technology investments in the coming year, 62 percent are worried about the availability of needed skills, and 51 percent are threatened by the speed of technology change, PwC’s research found.

Meanwhile, it’s not just competition with other providers that has healthcare CIOs worried. According to PwC, they face health IT labor competition from drug and device companies, HIT vendors and health insurance firms as well.

When it comes to skills, providers said clinical informatics was most important in meeting their goals. But they’re willing to compromise, and are increasingly borrowing IT specialists from other industries to meet their hiring needs.

To gain an advantage in health IT hiring, employers must pull off a neat trick, the building of their reputation as a place to work, PwC advises. Researchers note that providers who build their IT identity and brand will be in the best position to hire, manage and most of all keep key health IT workers on board.

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

6 Comments

  • Worse then expected? The HealthIT industry has a huge pool of former financial IT pros (who understand issues of privacy, reliability, data interchange, massive amounts of data, mobile use of data, and more) available to it at decent ‘prices’, yet for the most part absolutely refuses to let these people in. This is like the guy who kills his parents and then begs the court for mercy because he just became an orphan. It is an entirely self created problem, one that ONC (however clumsily) tried to solve through its training programs.

    The industry keeps shooting itself in the foot and crying in pain. Hey, the answer is to stop shooting itself – start hiring those of us with extensive and relevant IT backgrounds. Sure, you’d have to make sure we are up to date on HIPAA, and on working in hospital environments. And you might have to teach us (oh yeah – ONC did this already for some of us) ‘medical terminology’. But there are lots of us begging for decent jobs, some of whom already know the hospital and related health IT areas fairly well.

    Of course, management would have to accept this. And it would need to teach the recruiters (many of whom are nurses) that non-clinical people might have something to offer.

    Ron

  • When one talks about worker’s shortage, it helps to complete the sentence. The proper way is to say this would be: “Health IT Workers Shortage, at the wages presently offered, is Worse Than Expected”. This begins to describe the situation more clearly.

    Still if I were a crack technology guy, would I really want to be stuck in a 32 bit hospital environment and work in a technical domain dictated by an EHR vendor? Hospital IT is not for creativity, just execution. That’s a hard cell for cutting edge technologists.

  • That’s right Troy, even those of us with clinical and IT background with the right certifications can seem to find the jobs yet there is the propaganda that their is a shortage. Give me a break and start hiring qualified people who are ready to work.

  • Totally agree with Troy, Tom, and Ode… “Health IT Workers Shortage, at the wages presently offered, is Worse Than Expected”. Shortage for those who don’t want to pay median salaries/rates for those who have the right experience and knowledge that is needed and in demand. I’ve seen many hired into positions which they have no experience, only because they were the right price (cheap) and are looking to gain the knowledge and experience while on the job, then fail at the support and implementations that require such. So what happens? They outsource at a higher rate to get the job done, or go back to legacy technology saying it is too costly to change. The entire “if it aint broke” theory contradicts the inevitable change to success paradigm, which most healthcare facilities are all about EBIDA, so the same with less, or more with less. Sorry for the soap box, and while I could go on… let me reiterate… totally agree with Troy, Tom, and Ode. Anyone else?

  • Yeah… while recruiting is at it, let see how hiring contractors ONLY is working out for them.

  • I dont believe in shortages. There are plenty of IT professionals who are very much qualified to take on any challenge thrown at them. I grew up with the Industry and never ever did I see a problem as this research shows. Maybe the CxO level needs to be refreshed to meet the modern technology challenge. One of the issues that I have come across is that the Managers are afraid to hire anyone who has more experience and skill set than them. This is for job security. There are very skilled IT people out there who can get the HealthIT running in full throttle. Pay them for what they are worth.

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