2015 was a really tumultuous year for many in the healthcare IT market. That is especially true for healthcare IT consultants. I know many healthcare IT consulting companies that couldn’t make the switch from being EHR staff augmentation companies to truly being consultants. We saw signs of this issue early on in 2015 where many consulting companies had very little presence at HIMSS.
On the other side of things, in 2015 full time hires at healthcare organizations was up as EHR moved past the implementation stage and into the operational stage. Hospitals started firming up their requirements for EHR staffing and many switched from the EHR consulting world to a full time job at a hospital or health system.
As 2015 progressed many consulting companies found a bit of a resurgence thanks to ICD-10 and other value based care initiatives, but we also saw traditional EHR consulting companies working in a lot of new areas of consulting. The biggest of those were healthcare analytics efforts. Every healthcare organization wanted to get some value out of their EHR investment and so many looked to healthcare analytics to provide this result.
Epic and Cerner still were the most successful EHR companies and the most sought after certifications by healthcare IT professionals. However, we’ve started to see Meditech finally fight back against people who claim that the hospital EHR world is a two horse race. CPSI acquired Healthland to make the hospital EHR world even more interesting for smaller hospitals. athenahealth decided to go to hospital EHR school thanks to their hospital EHR acquisitions, but they still haven’t graduated.
One area of growth I’ve seen is in the area of security and privacy. Thanks to the wave of breaches that have happened inside and outside healthcare, there’s been more investment in security professionals. It’s still not enough, but there has been an uptick in investment in healthcare privacy and security.
What did I leave off? What else did you see happening in 2015?
Great summary John!
I also birth and growth of many telemedicine companies. Several bigger companies reported doubling their growth again in 2015.
I wish you all the best in 2016!
Joe
Joe,
I agree. Telemedicine is going to really take off in 2016. Although, I don’t think it will create that many healthcare IT jobs in the process. Certainly a few startup jobs. Also, it will shift many MD jobs. I’d love to hear if you think differently.