by
Sean Ruck, Contributing Editor | April 02, 2016
From the April 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
In health IT, the struggle to attract females to what has been a boy’s club for decades is significant, but necessary — there is lots of money on the table. Starting with The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, hospitals and medical professionals have been incentivized or penalized to get with the program of using programs and other technology to improve process, and more importantly, to improve patient care. Since the Meaningful Use incentives first started rolling in more than five years ago, the federal government has rewarded those meeting the set criteria to the tune of nearly $32 billion by the close of 2015. Yet even those facilities that may have felt they were doing well enough without the incentives had a valid motive for implementing EHR systems — they didn’t want to get hit with penalties.
For IT professionals this rush by facilities to reach their goals (incentive or penalty avoidance) meant an uptick in job openings, more power for salary demands and an elevated role to play in the success of their hospitals. But the pendulum started to swing the other way a little by 2012. By then, many facilities had their EHRs implemented and staff in place, so hiring in the health IT sector gradually slowed. By 2014, according to a finding from HIMSS, the percentage of hospitals and other facilities looking to hire health IT professionals was about 40 percent, or a little over half what it had been in 2010. Likewise, the number of organizations looking to reduce health IT staffing had climbed, although still a modest number at about 6 percent.
Through all this, while more women were finding positions in health IT, they were finding positions at lower pay rates with lower compensation packages. Fortunately, health IT is on an upswing again as more hospitals look to tap into the power of health care analytics to shift focus to preventive care instead of reactive care. Population health management is the next great frontier for these health IT professionals, and the women that work in the field today will continue to raise the silicon ceiling for those that follow.
And as for Clinton? If she does become president, she stands to make the same salary President Obama and President George W. Bush made, and in fact, her salary, at $400,000 per year, plus benefits would be double what Bill Clinton made during his years as president.
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