Readers Write: HIT Talent Trends to Watch in 2018

HIT Talent Trends to Watch in 2018
By Frank Myeroff

Frank Myeroff is president of Direct Consulting Associates of Cleveland, OH.

What’s in store for 2018 when it comes to HIT talent? Here are eight talent trends that will help to shape the HIT workforce in the New Year.

Widespread Adoption of People Analytics

As Millennials move into HIT management roles, they’re turning to analytics much more than their predecessors as a way to better understand the effectiveness of people practices, programs, and processes. Millennial HIT managers are creating employee dashboards like Microsoft’s MyAnalytics to help people better understand how their time is spent and as a means to measure progress of organizational HIT goals and initiatives.

Cybersecurity Needs to Improve

Cybersecurity in 2018 needs to become a top priority. In 2017, the WannaCry outbreak brought serious attention to security in the healthcare industries. The security of digital health data has not kept up with its growth due to a lack of investment in people and technology, but that is starting to change. Healthcare IT hiring managers and HR executives could be in a good position to lure cybersecurity talent in 2018 because healthcare is the hottest hiring hotspot when it comes to cybersecurity.

Explosive Growth in Telemedicine Services

According to an IHS Technology Report, the telemedicine services field is expected to grow to include 7 million patient users, nearly twice what is was in 2016. Telemedicine is a huge change to healthcare because it can help extend care and reach of patient monitoring, consultation, and counseling to those individuals who cannot make it to a doctor’s office. Plus, once it reaches its potential, telemedicine will allow doctors to help more patients in less time. According to a survey done by Becker’s Healthcare, only one percent of respondents had no plans to implement telemedicine in the future. This fast growth means that HIT professionals will play an event bigger role when it comes to developing telemedicine services. By helping to create the telehealth infrastructure, HIT professionals can help make telemedicine a fixture in healthcare delivery.

Robotics and AI Represent Greatest Transformation in Healthcare Services

While this has been a high-growth area in recent years, we see it skyrocketing in 2018 and beyond. The main areas of healthcare that will benefit the most from robotics and AI are direct patient care such as surgery and prosthetics, indirect patient care in the areas of pharmacy, medical goods delivery, home health, and disinfection that will interact with people having known infectious diseases. This high demand in robotics and AI will add a plethora of new jobs in the areas of highly skilled data specialists, algorithm specialists, robotics engineers, software developers, and technicians.

Expected IoT Job Boom On Hold

The healthcare industry only saw an 11 percent boost in Internet of Things (IoT) network connections between 2016 and 2017. That ranks the healthcare industry behind four other key industries: manufacturing, energy / utilities, transportation / distribution, and smart cities / communities according to “The Verizon State of the Market” report. While IoT devices clearly offer new benefits for healthcare provider organizations, adoption remains limited due to the IoT standards, security, interoperability, and cost. Therefore, the hiring of developers, coders, and hardware professionals will not be needed to the extent previously thought.

Continued Rise of Freelance Economy

There’s high growth when it comes to freelancers, temporary workers, contractors, and independent consultants within the HIT space. New technologies, cost factors, and a whole new generation of HIT professionals wanting to work in a gig economy are fueling the growth. Organizations should, now more than ever, look at building new strategies or evaluating what is already in place to keep these workers motivated and engaged. If they don’t, they risk losing this highly skilled talent to their competition. By 2020, it is anticipated that 50 percent of all US workers within various industries will be contingent workers.

Candidate-Driven Job Market Continues

In most industries across the US, we’re experiencing a candidate-driven job market and the HIT industry is no exception. Those who do have the right skills are in a good position to find the best job offer. They have far more power and latitude to be very selective regarding opportunities and employers. In fact, HIT professionals tell us that they have a pipeline of opportunities to choose from and are getting up to 20 recruiting calls per day. There’s no doubt that healthcare organizations are feeling the impact of the heightened competition for their attention.

Diversity in Technology Still Needed

With the retirement of the baby boomer generation in full swing, worker shortages are of great concern. The fact that the information technology field can’t seem to attract a more diverse population doesn’t help the situation. The IT workforce is predominantly white males. Even though many organizations announce diversity initiatives on a regular basis, hiring managers complain that they can only hire from the worker pool that is available. By introducing science, math, engineering, and technology (STEM) to minority students (including females) at an early age plus having a diverse group of educators throughout their schooling, the amount of diversity in the field as a whole can increase.