When you think about a career in medicine, you don’t immediately consider health information technology as one of the options. However, as medical systems move more toward being managed by computers, IT professionals with medical or healthcare backgrounds are becoming increasingly critical. Careers in medical information technology are among the fastest growing areas of study in recent years. The supply of professionals at HIT fails to meet the demands of the industry. As a career, there is a lot of room for advancement and promotion. In addition, it allows a person to perform valuable support in the operation of a medical center. Patient records and other crucial infrastructure are now moving to a cloud-based architecture, and they need trained experts to help run them.
Skilled IT is in demand in all areas
The medical field isn’t the only one in need of trained IT professionals. Several industries want the most qualified IT professionals in their support departments, leaving healthcare in short supply. There is also the obvious problem of having IT experts who understand the healthcare system. Professionals trained in health information technology to work in this industry must have specific training in the field. There are vacancies in the area for thousands of professionals as support staff in medical institutions.
lucrative professions
The most recent statistics show that HIT experts with less than two years of experience could earn an annual salary of $62,780. At the high end of the experience continuum, professionals with more than twenty years in the position could expect to earn $122,663 per year. General IT knowledge is the same across all industries. However, those who chose to enter this field earned up to $22,000 more on average than those in other sectors. In healthcare, an IT experience prepares you to enter a high-demand field where trained experts are needed.
Available positions
There are several different positions that you can find yourself in for those looking to get into healthcare information technology. A clinical systems analyst is responsible for troubleshooting problems that may occur with electronic medical record systems. They usually need a thorough understanding of coding and databases. Chief Information Officers are in charge of all digital patient records and act as heads of the internal IT department, delegating jobs to other professionals. While these indicate some of the industry positions, the demand for HIT specialists will continue to grow as time goes on. With more and more medical facilities providing electronic data to each other, the need for qualified support personnel has never been more critical.
