The inaugural HIMSS Analytics Workforce Survey shows that while health IT hiring was robust in 2012, there was a shortage of qualified applicants for information technology positions, possibly resulting in a delay for EHR implementations and the key provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). More than 85% of healthcare organizations reported hiring at least one employee in 2012, while only 13% laid off any staff during that time, indicating a strong interest in boosting operational efficiencies and implementing technology in the coming months.
The majority of the 224 healthcare organizations that participated in the poll reported hiring staff in 2012, mostly for application support or help desk positions. EHR and other health IT vendors were eager to grow their businesses, with more than 20 hires on average, many of which were in sales and marketing. Seventy-three percent of providers and 96% of vendors plan to hire more staff in the coming months, which is good news for victims of recession lay-offs. Organizations were looking for seasoned, experienced workers with respected professional certifications and often turned to job boards and recruiters to find them.
However, the lack of qualified workers represented a major challenge to organizations looking to bolster their IT teams. Close to half of respondents have even placed an IT initiative on hold because they could not fully staff the program, and admitted that these back-burner projects represented some sort of risk to patient safety or revenue generation. Three-quarters of organizations admitted to outsourcing staff instead of hiring directly, and 93% have plans to outsource some portion of their projects in the coming year. Project management, clinical application support, and IT security were most often handled by outsourced professionals.
Vendors placed a high priority on professional certifications, especially in the areas of security, network and architecture support, database administration, and project management. Once employed, organizations worked to retain their valuable staff members by offering professional development and competitive compensation packages. Sixty percent of providers and 64% of vendors made professional development programs available to their staff, while full or part-time telecommuting and paid tuition for continuing education were perks for about half of respondents.
Despite these benefits, a quarter of organizations said that more attractive offers from other companies lured away their prized employees, forcing them to put projects like EHR upgrades, integrations, and new system installations on hold in favor of high-priority mandates like meaningful use and ICD-10. These delays affected organizational efficiencies, prompting a loss of potential revenue due to wasted time and effort. Broken equipment was also problematic, leading to the inability to share EHR data and potentially placing patient safety at risk. Providers complained that consultants were too expensive to hire, but also noted that project delays due to understaffing caused serious operational problems, costing the organization money.
While healthcare organizations and vendors face significant challenges to maintaining efficient staffing practices and completing projects in a timely and knowledgeable manner, they are still eager to hire workers and move forward with health IT initiatives. That finding is good news for unemployed or underemployed health IT workers as well as the industry as a whole, as government agencies encourage the move towards universal EHR adoption and other important health IT projects in the coming years.Source
