Interview: How to Secure Yourself a Health IT Career

Today on TIP: Secrets to a Successful Health IT Career

In his latest article for Tom's IT Pro, security expert Mikhael Felker interviews Anastasia Adam, a leading Health Information Technology (HIT) account manager with a top IT recruitment and staffing firm.

As Mikhael writes, Anastasia helps companies obtain the best in healthcare IT talent. However, not only is Anastasia the person to turn to when hiring HIT workers, she has loads of advice for folks already in or looking to get into HIT.

Anastasia believes we are in a boom-and-stabilize cycle for HIT.

"In order to get these EHR (Electronic Health Record) systems up and running there needs to be a boom for the implementation," she explains in the interview. "However, the implementation itself is not the end of the road. Following the implementation comes upgrades, analytics, and user adoption."

So there is plenty of opportunity for the aspiring HIT professional.

Throughout the interview Anastasia provides informative answers to to Mikhael's questions regarding the role of IT in healthcare and what an IT pro needs to know to pursue a successful HIT career. Anastasia addresses HIT's top career tracks, recruitment challenges, common job titles, certifications and credentials, technologies and platforms, job transitions, and much more throughout her talk with Mikhael.

In regard to HIT career tracks, for example, Anastasia notes they are very unique and clearly not one-size-fits-all.

"In many hospitals, we have seen people coming from a clinical background (i.e. Registered Nurse-RN) into an IT role," she says. "Other examples are people starting as trainers and working their way into the system build and then up to management if desired."

See here to read the full interview and get the lowdown on the HIT job market. 

Some Additional Health IT Articles on Tom's IT Pro:

• Making It in IT: Asking about Healthcare IT Certification

With the upcoming boom in Healthcare, certified Healthcare IT techs will be in demand. 

• Top 5 IT Certifications in Healthcare

There are numerous certifications that specifically target IT for healthcare.

• GIS Career Opportunities for Health IT Pros

Geographic information systems and mapping knowledge provide IT pros with in-demand skills.

• Senate Bill Has IT Pro Overtime Pay in Crosshairs

CPU Act would amend Fair Labor Standards Act to eliminate overtime pay for many IT workers.

• Health IT Look Out: The Cloud and Outsourcing Coming

The healthcare industry will spend $518 million on Infrastructure as a Service—yet another outsourcing trend—by the middle of this decade.

James Alan Miller is Managing Editor of Tom's IT Pro. He is a veteran technology journalist with over seventeen years of experience creating and developing magazine and online content. Founding editor of numerous business and enterprise computing sites at the internet.com network, James headed up the After Hours section at PC Magazine, as well as hardware and software sections of various Windows publications.

See here for all Tom's IT Pro articles written by James.