health information systems jobs growth

Health Information Systems Projected for Lightning-Fast Growth

You may not realize it, but healthcare is in the midst of a radical transformation. American healthcare is undergoing a paradigm shift of massive proportions, moving from a volume-based business to value-based. If you’re a healthcare information technology expert, your place in this transformation is important. 

Healthcare Trends are Driving Need for Data & Informing the Future

In volume-based healthcare, a facility is built and the hospital focuses on filling the beds -- providing care to the patients who are most often in a medical crisis. In value-based healthcare, the hospital is rewarded for providing proactive preventative treatment to manage a disease before a crisis hits. To manage these populations proactively takes data capture, manipulation and assessment to understand patient trends, treatment modalities and workflow effectiveness. That’s where the health information systems expert comes in.

Data is the driver of healthcare. The healthcare information system stores, manages and exports clinical data across a healthcare system. The days of paper charting are gone, replaced by sophisticated electronic medical records, practice management systems, billing platforms – to name just a few of the technology tools of the healthcare trade. The healthcare information systems manager is responsible for managing and maintaining these systems, and increasingly, playing one of the most important roles in healthcare today.

What Does a Health Information System Manager Do?

Health information managers are often tasked with pulling data and reporting on patient outcomes, and charting the success or failure of various treatment modalities across a population. This data lies at the heart of quality management initiatives that can impact everything from hospital reimbursement to the hospital’s quality rankings with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

These professionals can also be responsible for the successful rollout of large technology systems, including staff training and implementation. They are often in charge of cyber security and tasked with keeping patient data safe from external breech. In a hospital setting, there are often varying technology systems designed by a number of different software and hardware vendors. Interoperability between these sophisticated systems is increasingly challenging. Some health information system managers specialize in integrating these systems. These skills are particularly prized by hospitals, technology vendors and healthcare consulting firms. 

Roles in health information systems aren’t just confined to the hospital; you can find these highly skilled professionals handling clinical and business information databases in labs, pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, in medical research, public health and many more.

The type of health information systems could include:

  • Administrative: extracting information from clinical systems to manage daily operations
  • Decision support: extrapolates data from various systems and compiles it to analyze clinical and operational trends
  • Task-based systems: capture data during patient visits or test results from the laboratory, pharmacy and diagnostic imaging or other ancillary services

 Basic maintenance and support of these systems could include:

  • Reviewing electronic patient medical records for completeness and accuracy of data
  • Maintaining data for clinical databases
  • Tracking patient outcomes for quality initiatives
  • Using software to assign clinical codes for medical procedure financial reimbursement from insurance companies
  • Electronically collecting analyzing and reporting data
  • Protecting data security

How to Break Into Health Information Systems Management

Typically, a two-year associate degree in health science or information technology is required to break into this challenging profession. Courses in medical terminology, health data standards, coding, healthcare reimbursement, and information management technology are often a part of this degree program.

ECPI University is graduating the health information system experts of the future – today. Our Associate of Applied Science in Health Science with a concentration in Health Information Management is the first step toward entry into this exciting path. Contact us today to take the first step toward a bright future! It could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!

Learn more about ECPI University's College of Health Science TODAY!

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