What are your thoughts on the Health Information Technology field?

[Rilescat]

Health IT is one of the few fields that is currently still in a hiring phase during the recession. The ARRA stimulus dollars (19.2B) have helped to propel some of this growth. But even before the stimulus the HIT field was one of the fastest growing IT fields.

I am looking for some perspectives of the HIT field. Are you in this field? If so, what do you think of it? If not, what are your impressions from the outside? Would you make a move to HIT if available?

Thanks for the feedback.

Shawn

 

[olds]

Patients First, Technology First, Math Second.

 

[phreaqe]

i am interested in it as well but when i graduated college it seems all the hospitals were asking for years of experience in the health care field which i obviously did not have.

 

[TheKub]

From what I understand doctors are second only to teachers in the PITA to support arena.

 

[Rilescat]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
Patients First, Technology First, Math Second.

HA HA HA... I like that....

Good thing we use computers for all our math

 

[Rilescat]

Originally posted by: TheKub
From what I understand doctors are second only to teachers in the PITA to support arena.

It can be a very challenging area to support. It does very much depend on the relationship you build with the doctors and nurses. Their frustration and shortness with support often stems from the fact that they only need support when they have a patient sitting in the room with them.

 

[mrCide]

I work for corporate in a health services company that runs hospitals, nursing centers, schools, cemeteries, etc. It's a mess, and fortunately I don't have to make any major decisions (sys admin), but it's a good position to be in. I actually feel confident/secure in my job all things said and done.

 

[dphantom]

I am taking a job in a hospital shortly. Was a consultant for them as they migrated from Novell to Active Directory. High level Windows AD/Citrix Xen designer. Looking forward to it. I worked closely with doctors/hospitalists before. Yes, they ccan be a pain, but they are so focused on patient care they demand a lot because a lot is demanded of them. Understand that, and you will be fine. It's about patient care, all about patient care.

 

[Kev]

Originally posted by: dphantom
I am taking a job in a hospital shortly. Was a consultant for them as they migrated from Novell to Active Directory. High level Windows AD/Citrix Xen designer. Looking forward to it. I worked closely with doctors/hospitalists before. Yes, they ccan be a pain, but they are so focused on patient care they demand a lot because a lot is demanded of them. Understand that, and you will be fine. It's about patient care, all about patient care.

You fail to mention the most important aspect, patient care.

 

[bobross419]

Currently working Help Desk at a local health care company. We're in the process of rolling out EHR to all of our sites. It can be exciting at times and the Docs can be a huge pain. We work hard to maintain good relationships with the docs and they usually go easy on us instead of just ripping into us because "Computer broke". Biggest complaint that I have is that Docs can get past just about any policy that IT comes up with by bitching to the Chief Medical Officer Its probably an issue with our company's infrastructure, but it wouldn't surprise me if this stuff happened in other companies.

I feel very secure in my job and there is enough room for advancement that I can stay here for years to come.

 

[Modelworks]

I can tell you that the need for good ones are pretty high judging by what I have seen. Seems like every time I go to a hospital or doctors office they are having tech problems with the computers or network. Just yesterday the doctors office was trying to reach the on call tech because nobody could login.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
Patients First, Technology First, Math Second.

:laugh:

First Friday beer goes to you.

:beer:

 

[xchangx]

As a former IT director in a hospital and now on an implementation team for an EMR project I think I can give you some insight.

If you are proactive in designing your infrastructure, it's not too bad. Yeah some dr's can be a pain, but you just have to learn how to deal with them and let them know what you can and can't do for them. The bad ones are the ones that know enough to break things by playing.

In general the field is a good field to be in. With more hospital systems moving to EMR's and more and more systems are becoming digital, there's only room for growth.

If you are interested in the field, I'd suggest dealing with interfaces (HL-7 messages). As more companies buy 3rd party EMR systems the need to integrate the new system with the legacy systems will be there as well.

Working in a hospital has it's ups and downs. Since they are a 24/7 operation, there will always be a need for on-call. However, as a director I had access to all areas of the hospital and became friends with directors of the other departments and got to watch and see a lot of cool things.

Let me know if you have any questions

 

[vi edit]

From my experience working for a corporate office of a kinda large hospital system, there's two basic types of "IT" workers.

1) Real IT people...those with solid IT backgrounds, experience working with real IT systems/equipment, ect. These people are in charge of infrastructure and the real meat & potatoes of the IT environment.

2) Clinical staff that have bubbled up into IT roles. These are people that were nurses, Xray techs, lab staff, ect that were superusers on the applications and were brought on board to be process analysts and eventually hired on full time to support and help build applications.

And there's a large schism of end user respect between the two.

I've found that there is little room outside of those boundaries. However, large hospitals/healthcare systems are just like any other highly political/nepotistic corporate environment (if not worse!) and if you have connections you can get just about any job you want if you know the right people.

If you can get onboard with one and learn some of the best of breed/best of class applications (especially HIS/EMR and how to interface applications between them) then you have a golden ticket for the rest of your career.

Health Care IT is wildly out of control. So much stuff is going digital now and the equipment is getting so IT dependent that there's a huge need for support and infrastructure positions. With the government push for a true universal EMR there's going to be an even bigger demand to go electronic for more stuff. That's even more staff needed to get these systems installed and supported.

 

[Rilescat]

Originally posted by: bobross419
Currently working Help Desk at a local health care company. We're in the process of rolling out EHR to all of our sites. It can be exciting at times and the Docs can be a huge pain. We work hard to maintain good relationships with the docs and they usually go easy on us instead of just ripping into us because "Computer broke". Biggest complaint that I have is that Docs can get past just about any policy that IT comes up with by bitching to the Chief Medical Officer Its probably an issue with our company's infrastructure, but it wouldn't surprise me if this stuff happened in other companies.

I feel very secure in my job and there is enough room for advancement that I can stay here for years to come.

Issues with accountability are everywhere. It isn't just your shop.