Why Your Next IT Job Will Be In Healthcare

Federal stimulus billions are fueling demand for up to 50,000 new information technology positions. Most sought after are tech pros with real-world implementation experience, Windows experts, and network admins.

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee over at InformationWeek reports that Hospitals and medical practices are scrambling to deploy e-medical record and other clinical information systems to meet federal requirements for the more than $20 billion in stimulus incentives included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. And that means many of them are expanding their IT teams to bring in the skills and expertise they need to implement these systems.In fact, National Coordinator of Health IT Dr. David Blumenthal recently predicted that the move toward digitized medical record systems could create 50,000 new healthcare IT jobs over the next several years.

A recent survey by IT staffing firm Robert Half Technology of 244 healthcare CIOs found fourth quarter hiring plans include the following skills:

Network administration (76%)

Desktop support (72%)

Windows administration (61%)

Wireless network management (55%)

Database management (54%)

Telecommunications support (49%)

Web development/design (30%)

Virtualization (35%)

Business intelligence/reporting services (32%)

ERP implementation (26%)