We are starting to see early adopters of EMR technology begin to successfully attest to meaningful use, but many of the rest of us are busy helping our organization perform all the tasks necessary to get there. Many organizations are busy fortifying their infrastructure to facilitate 24×7 clinical applications, creating nursing and physician committees to design and maintain electronic assessments, order sets and care plans, crafting careful strategies for training to ensure maximum and ongoing adoption, etc. Yes, our plates are full! And all the prognostications of the need for Healthcare IT talent are coming true! This is so exciting for someone who, like me, has spent most of his/her career in Healthcare IT and lived through the last 5 or 6 LEAN years. And I don’t mean that in the same way GE, Motorola, or Healthcare guru Mark Graban mean lean! I mean there was very little attention or money being spent on Healthcare IT and thus, many or our careers have been on hold and stagnating.
Well your Healthcare IT career need not be on hold any longer. The market is too hot for you to continue to be satisfied with no opportunity for learning new things, no raises and no promotions. You just have to check out the great job opportunities here to see that we all have options and opportunities like we have not had in many years! The opportunities for most of us are to help organizations implement and optimize their EMRs. You may ask, what should I be doing to take advantage of the opportunities. I will tell you…
You should dust of the career plan that you put together the last time the market was hot and create specific new goals based on the current opportunities in the market. Undoubtedly, your objectives have changes since the last time it was worth actually writing down your plan.
You should be networking like crazy (as you should in any economic climate) to make sure that you are getting maximum exposure to opportunities. You should join new groups to get access to information vital to your organization meeting MU. You should make sure that you are networking with your systems vendors as some of the best opportunities can come as a result of your expertise with their systems.
You should put together a learning plan that ensures that you have the knowledge and expertise that keeps you on the top of recruiters’ lists for the best opportunities.
You should check our job listings here and sign up to get e-mail updates.
You might even consider contacting a career coach that can help ensure you get the best raise, promotion or new position possible. Many of us have connections with the consulting firms, vendors and/or hospital organizations that you are most interested in.
Did I move you to act? The time is now… Let’s get started on constructing your career once again!
