Hiring Forecast

We may beginning to see the first signs of the uptick I've been anticipating all year.

Referring to some of my earlier posts, the ARRA/HITECH initiative has unfortunately seemed to have had the perverse impact of further slowing down hiring in the HIT field, as healthcare providers slowed hiring not only due to general economic/budget challenges, but also due to an understandable need to 'wait and see' on the eventual criteria for stimulus monies, aka the 'meaningful use criteria' and other specifics surrounding the reimbursement.

As those issues are gradually being clarified, we seem to be seeing some of the providers beginnning to move forward with their plans. The short version; it appears that CPOE in some fashion will be the 'meaningful use', so those that have system rollouts underway are beginning to adjust their plans and schedules to achieve that end as soon as possible.

The result should be a strong surge in hiring around EMR specialist types, particularly in areas around pharmacy, physicians, nursing, meds, ordering and CPOE over the next 2 years.

Hopefully we'll be laughing in 12 months about how crazy it's gotten vs. how slow it has been the last 6 months.