EMR Adoption Drives Need for HIT Jobs

April 21st, 2008 by Jon Mertz

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An article in FierceHealthIT highlighted a recently published paper (PDF) on how Electronic Medical Record (EMR) adoption is driving the need for more Healthcare IT (HIT) jobs. A key statement from the report:

“While hospitals with basic implementation are utilizing about 0.1 IT staff per bed, this rises to around 0.2 IT staff per bed as hospitals advance from Stage 1 to Stage 4 implementation based on the HIMSS EMR Adoption Model. If our data represent a correct sampling of the entire US, then the current IT staff workforce is about 108,390 FTE. However, if the US HIT agenda is fulfilled and hospitals move to higher levels of adoption, an additional 40,784 FTE will be required.”

Characterizing the Health Information Technology Workforce: Analysis from the HIMSS Analytics Database, April 2008.

In the EMR adoption model as defined by HIMSS, the various stages are succinctly defined. Stage 1 includes basic systems in place - radiology, laboratory, pharmacy - while moving to Stage 4 includes implementation of a Computerized Practitioner/Physician Order Entry (CPOE) system.

The key point of the paper and discussion: Adopting new technologies in hospitals require additional IT personnel to support and ensure success. In selecting new technologies, it is important for hospitals to evaluate the type of IT skills required to support the required new applications. Balancing the type of skills required with the associated costs is essential.