Jeff Ray always liked technology. When he got out of the Army about 10 years ago, he started taking computer science classes. Soon he was working for the Newberry Group, a technology consulting firm in St. Charles.
Through his job there, Ray entered health information technology, one of the fastest-growing industries in the nation. The Newberry Group had a contract with SSM Healthcare-St. Louis, and Ray eventually moved to being a full-time SSM employee.
With positions ranging from systems technicians to chief medical-technology officers, careers related to how medical information is generated, stored and mined are soaring in demand and popularity.
"Because of trends in the health care industry, we need people who have a new knowledge base for decision-making," said Jody Smith, chair of the health informatics and information management program at St. Louis University's Doisey College of Health Sciences. This fall, the school will add a master's program in informatics
If the nation's health care system continues to move toward wider adoption of health information technology, it could need 40,000 more health IT professionals to do it, according to research by Dr. William Hersh, a professor of health informatics at Oregon Health & Science University.
Hersh found U.S. hospitals employ about 108,000 full-time equivalents in health information technology careers. But if these hospitals want to increase technology to the point where it improves quality and efficiency, the number will need to increase by more than 37 percent.
Dr. Don Detmer, chief executive of the American Medical Informatics Association, said Hersh's estimates are the best available, but they aren't adequate because it's difficult to differentiate between the professionals who design the systems and those who make them work. Detmer is confident more health information technology professionals will be needed.
"It's an emerging profession," Detmer said. "There's not enough trained people."
For Ray, the career combines his interest in technology with a field he finds interesting.
"There's an urgency everywhere, but here people's lives are at stake," said Ray, who works at SSM St. Joseph Hospital West in Lake Saint Louis. "That's always in the forefront. Knowing that at the end of the day really makes it worth it to come to work each day."
When St. Joseph Hospital West became the first private hospital in the region to implement a coordinated electronic medical records system, Ray was the lead technician for the personal computers being installed throughout the facility. He helped with implementation and troubleshooting.
Now, Ray is taking classes at St. Charles Community College and plans to earn his associate's degree in information systems management.
Bonnie Siegel, a vice president with Cejka Search Inc., a health care recruiting firm, was hired to recruit health care executives specifically interested in health information technology.
Many of her recruits began with a career as a physician or a nurse and built on an interest in information technology. They're often designing the systems or determining how they can work better in patient-care situations, rather than working on technology glitches.
Many chief medical-information technology officers remain active physicians, while most chief nursing-information technology officers leave their previous profession to focus on their new careers.
Depending on their original specialty, chief medical-information technology officers might earn close to $500,000, while chief nursing-information technology officers can earn in the six figures.
Most facilities are looking for someone with experience in implementing an electronic records system, preferably the same system being implemented at that facility, Siegel said. Having a master's degree or doctorate in health informatics or a related field makes candidates even more attractive, she said.
Eventually, Detmer sees a formal accreditation and fellowship process being created for physicians, similar to any other medical speciality.
"In a way, it's at the center of the future of care," Detmer said.(source) |
