Salary of health information tech: Health Care Information Technology Salary
Health Information Technology Jobs — Salary & Job Info
- Healthcare
Jonathan Mack, PhD, RN-BC, NP
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The field of health information technology is experiencing explosive growth and offers tremendous earning potential (average health IT salary: $91,000, according to one survey). This makes health information technology a very attractive career option — both for experienced medical professionals as well as information technology professionals.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics cites health information technology as one of the 20 fastest-growing occupations in the U.S. Read on to learn more about health information technology jobs and careers paths, including:
- Specific health information technology jobs and salaries
- Helpful resources for those who aspire to a career in health IT
- Insight into how a master’s degree in health informatics can help you thrive in this fascinating, fast-growing field
Health Information Technology Career Paths
Development/Maintenance of Electronic Medical Records (EMR, EHR) Systems – The transition to electronic health records throughout the world of health care has created numerous career opportunities, from entry-level to supervisory and leadership roles. Health information technicians who work with electronic medical records are focused on developing, implementing, optimizing and maintaining hardware and software systems to manage health information and patient data.
Data Analytics – Health information specialists are needed to analyze data with an eye toward using the insights the data provides to improve health care programs and services. Hospitals may use such data to analyze trends and improve their administrative and patient care protocols. Health IT data analysts are also sought after by insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, medical suppliers, public health administrators, and other industry players.
Medical Coding – Health care providers are seeking coding experts to help with coding clinical data for classification, reimbursement, planning and research. Key areas of specialty within the world of medical coding include such related disciplines as information governance, patient advocacy, privacy and security, and health informatics.
The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) is emphasizing the importance of graduate degrees for health information professionals seeking to take advantage of these emerging career opportunities.
Education – The brisk demand for qualified workers in this fast-growing field means more opportunities in the education sector, as colleges, universities and professional associations offer certification and degree programs to help meet the ever-increasing need for professionals trained in health IT and health informatics.
Regulatory Compliance – In order to receive reimbursement for services under Medicare and Medicaid, health care providers and health systems must supply detailed information to the federal government about the care they provide and the outcomes they achieve. Created under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act of 2009, the so-called “Meaningful Use” system awards financial incentives (as well as penalties) based on statistical analysis of the efficiency and quality of care provided.
Health IT professionals who possess knowledge and experience in regulatory compliance are sought after by small and medium-sized practices and large medical organizations, as well as by private companies that help medical organizations efficiently comply with the applicable federal mandates.
[RELATED] How to Land a Job in Health Informatics: Two Different Paths to Employment >>
Health Information Technology & Health Informatics Job and Salary Information
A survey of more than 400 health care IT professionals conducted by eHealth Careers found that health care IT workers in the U.S. earn an average of $91,251 per year and senior-level positions can pay well into the six figures annually. Here’s how the average salary breaks down by position:
Health Informatics
- Chief Clinical Informatics Officer – $180,000
- Director of Clinical Informatics – $128,000
- Healthcare IT Project Manager – $102,000
- Nursing Informatics Specialist – $100,717
- Informatics Consultant – $94,360
- Clinical Informatics Coordinator – $84,058
Sources: AHIMA, CareersInPublicHealth.
net
Health Information Technology
- Health Information Technology Executive – $127,500
- Health IT Management – $111,500
- Project Management – $100,000
- Software Development – $85,000
- Data Analyst – $83,000
- HIT Analyst – $80,000
- Systems Analyst – $80,000
- Health Information Educator – $69,000
- Health IT Consultant – $68,750
- Systems/Network Engineer – $67,500
Source: Health eCareers
Health Information Technology Career Resources
For medical or IT professionals looking to pursue new opportunities or to advance their current career in health information technology or health informatics, here are some helpful resources from leading industry sources.
How to Break Into a Career in Health Care IT — This article from Verywell Health offers an overview of health IT, the industry’s “explosive growth” and the two primary paths into this fast-growing field (clinical/medical professionals moving into IT roles; and information technology professionals gaining medical knowledge needed to excel in health IT).
It also discusses key industry certifications and the value of having a master’s degree.
HealthIT.gov Careers Resource Page — The federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology offers informational and FAQ pages for those interested in careers in health information technology.
Guide to Health Information Technology Terminology — A glossary of key health information technology terms, acronyms and organizations (source: University of San Diego).
The American Health Information Management Association — Founded in 1928, AHIMA describes itself as “the premier association of health information management (HIM) professionals worldwide,” serving 52 affiliated state associations and more than 103,000 health information professionals. AHIMA offers a wealth of resources, from basic info about health IT to a Career and Student Center (with Job Bank and Career Map).
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society — HIMSS is a nonprofit founded in 1961 to serve as a forum for collaboration in the world of health care IT.
HIMSS also administers certification exams for health IT professionals and awards Approved Education Partner status to organizations that meet rigorous standards for creating and delivering health care IT educational opportunities (for example, the University of San Diego and its master’s degree in Health Care Informatics program).
[RELATED] How to Choose the Best Health Informatics Degree Program >>
Careers in Health IT and Health Informatics: How a Master’s Degree Helps
The American Health Information Management Association released a report exploring how the fast-growing field of health care informatics is impacting career prospects for professionals working in health information technology (HIT) and health information management (HIM).
Titled “HIM Reimagined,” the AHIMA report asserts that, for many professionals working in HIM or HIT, “advanced degrees will play a pivotal role in their future.” One of the major recommendations in the report is to increase the number of professionals who hold “relevant graduate degrees,” including the increasingly sought-after master’s in health informatics.
Read more about the AHIMA report here: “How Health Informatics is Shaping Future of Health Information Management.”
Jonathan Mack, PhD, RN-BC, NP
Director of Health Care and Nursing Informatics and Health Systems Leadership Director of Innovative
The field of health information technology is experiencing explosive growth and offers tremendous earning potential (average health IT salary: $91,000, according to one survey). This makes health information technology a very attractive career option — both for experienced medical professionals as well as information technology professionals. The Bureau of Labor…
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Health Information Technology Jobs & Salary | Work
By Chron Contributor Updated February 09, 2021
Workers in health information technology, often referred to as health information technicians, medical records technicians or medical coders, maintain the medical information of patients in hospitals and other health care organizations.
In order to become a health information technician, it is usually necessary to obtain a postsecondary certificate or an associate’s degree.
Job Description
Most health information technicians work as medical coders, spending most of each day in front of computer screens, updating patient records. Medical coders must often interact with physicians and other health personnel to confirm that patient records are accurate, or to retrieve patient information. Other health information technicians work as cancer registrars, maintaining and organizing the records of cancer patients. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, most health information technicians work full time, and some are required to work evening and night shifts.
National Salary Information
The BLS reports that the median health information technology salary was $42,630 as of May 2019. The average salary of a health information technician in the United States was $42,630 a year as of 2019, and the average wage reported was $20.
50 an hour. The highest paid 10 percent of health information technicians brought home $71,150 or more per year.
Factors Affecting Salary
Both location and employment setting affect medical records and health information technicians’ salary, according to the BLS. When you look at Health Information Technician salary by state, average salaries ranged from a low of $36,410 per year in Mississippi to a high of $58,000 in Alaska. Curiously, when you include territories, the District of Columbia at $59,450 has the highest average salary, and Puerto Rico at $24,880 has the lowest. Other high-paying states for health information jobs in 2019 included Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Washington. By employment setting, health information technicians working in physician’s offices reported an average salary of $41,500 per year, while those employed in general hospitals earned a significantly higher average of $49,370.
The highest paying industry is Junior Colleges, where the average is $91,900.
Job Outlook
As of 2019, the BLS reports an estimated 341,600 health information technicians were working in the United States. Driven by an increasing demand for medical services, the BLS expects that the number of health information technology careers will grow at a fast rate of 8 percent from 2019 to 2029. This projected rate of growth will result in about 37,700 new jobs by the decade’s end. Job prospects should be favorable for those who have completed relevant certificate programs such as the Certified Tumor Registrar (CTR) or the Registered Health Information Technician (RHIT).
References
- Bureau of Labor Statistics: Medical Records and Health Information Technicians
- Bureau of Labor Statistics: Occupational Employment and Wages May 2019
- Bureaus of Labor Statistics: Job Outlook
Profession: Medical Informatician – description, salary and where to learn
(Medizininformatiker/in)
-
Type
Profession after diploma
-
Specialty
Informatics, Medicine
-
nine0007 Salary
3999-6560 € per month
Medical Informaticians (Medical IT Professionals) develop, maintain, operate, and distribute health information and documentation systems, such as hospital information systems, imaging and diagnostic procedures, computer-assisted surgical techniques, or knowledge-based systems.
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Medical Informatics Responsibilities
Medical IT professionals develop clinical workstation systems that structure medical knowledge, provide situational information retrieval, and model decision-making processes. To this end, medical informatics specialists create programs for medical applications in the field of diagnostics and therapy, such as computed tomography, and software interfaces between practice software and diagnostic systems or various application systems. They develop methods that generate 3D images of the body from measured data or transmit real-time ultrasound or video images to a workstation. In addition, they develop information systems for hospitals and optimize information processing and information exchange between hospitals, medical institutions, rehabilitation institutions and medical research institutions. nine0010
In clinical research, as well as in the pharmaceutical industry, medical IT professionals are involved in the planning, execution, and evaluation of clinical or pharmacological research.
They advise researchers on designing experiments to obtain statistically significant results and developing methods for creating disease registries, compiling epidemiological reports, or calculating risk models.
Where Medical Informatics work
Medical Informatics finds employment, e.g.
- in IT service providers, software and database vendors
- in healthcare (hospitals, medical practices, health insurance, medical centers, pharmaceutical companies, consulting firms, health authorities)
- from manufacturers of medical devices
- in research and development
Salary of Medical Informatics
The salary level received by Medical Informatics in Germany is
- from €3999 to €6560 per month
(according to various statistical and employment offices in Germany)
Tasks and Responsibilities of a Medical Informatician in Detail
What is the Career of a Medical Informatician (IT Specialist)
Medical IT Professionals develop, maintain, operate, and distribute health information and documentation systems, such as hospital information systems, imaging procedures, and diagnostic procedures, computer-assisted surgical methods or knowledge-based systems.
nine0010
Information systems development
Health informatics professionals develop procedures and systems that enable physicians to collect, view, and process medical data in order to summarize a large number of results in an aggregated form. An important area of work is the development of hospital information systems for hospital management as well as patient management. To this end, medical IT professionals process business process data (e.g. billing, services, maintenance costs and consumables) as well as patient-related medical data (e.g. data, treatment outcomes, medications, fever curves). etc.). They select, procure and install components, oversee operations and, if necessary, tailor systems to the specific needs of the hospital. nine0010
Process imaging capabilities
Imaging techniques for diagnostics, magnetic resonance imaging, sonography, digital angiography, computerized. Medical informatics programs, for example, interfaces between practice software and digital diagnostic systems.
They develop methods that generate 3D images of the body from measured data or transmit real-time ultrasound or video images to a workstation. In addition, they develop demonstration programs that support therapy planning and/or that can be used to perform surgery or radiation planning. Medical IT professionals are also developing procedures that make minute structures visible during surgery, allowing doctors to “navigate” the patient’s body. In some cases, computer procedures are also used in operations, for example with the help of robots that are programmed by medical computer scientists. nine0010
Establishment of diagnostic and support systems
Another task of medical informatics is to provide systems for monitoring vital parameters (e.g. blood pressure, heart rate, respiration) during surgery or in intensive care units in order to recognize critical situations in a timely manner and intervene immediately .
In addition, medical IT specialists are developing diagnostic support systems for automatic evaluation of long-term ECG.
From these assessments, disease risks can be assessed and timely countermeasures can be taken. Computer-controlled prostheses or implants to support sensory functions are also programmed by medical informatics. nine0010
In clinical research, as well as in the pharmaceutical industry, medical IT professionals are involved in the planning, execution, and evaluation of clinical or pharmacological research. They advise researchers on designing experiments to obtain statistically significant results and develop methods for creating disease registries, drawing epidemiological reports, or calculating risk models. Finally, medical documentation includes the acquisition of medical services, as well as the systematic collection, storage and processing of medical research results using information technology. nine0010
Medical Informatics Fields
Medical IT professionals work in all areas of healthcare, in hospitals, medical centers (MVZ), large medical institutions, specialized software houses, pharmaceutical industry, health insurance companies, manufacturers and users medical devices or at universities and research institutes.
Some of them are freelance or self-employed. Communication with customers is common, especially when they advise and train users, or when IT applications and systems need to be customized to meet individual customer needs. nine0010
Statistics
Sign up for a consultation on admission to a university in Germany by profession
Medical Informatics
Examples of highly paid vacancies for Medical Informatics in German companies
Current vacancies for Medical Informatics: / /search?searchtext=Medizininformatik&location=
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as reporting argued with the May decrees – RBC
More than 10% of medical institutions would not have enough money to pay half of the staff if the May 2012 decrees were actually implemented, RBC calculated. A working mechanism for increasing the salaries and motivation of doctors has not yet been created
Photo: Evgenia Novozhenina / RIA Novosti
In 2017, in 864 Russian hospitals, that is, in every tenth, if Vladimir Putin’s May 2012 decrees were followed, the wage fund would have ended or gone negative, RBC calculated on the basis of data from the official website for posting information about state and municipal institutions bus.
gov.ru.
In total, according to the website, there are 8.2 thousand medical institutions in Russia. RBC studied the reports of 7.3 thousand of them, that is, all those who posted financial statements for the past year. In 2012, the president instructed the government to ensure that by 2018 the salaries of doctors reached 200% of the average for the region, and nurses and orderlies – 100%. The government announced the completion of this task in the spring of 2018. nine0010
According to RBC’s calculations, medical personnel covered by the May 2012 decrees make up half of all employees of hospitals and polyclinics. Thus, taking into account the average salary of employees indicated in the financial statements and the number of staff positions in medical institutions, if the president’s task was completed in 2017, 864 of them would not have had any money left to pay the rest of the employees: cleaners, accountants, etc.
In 2.3 thousand hospitals, if the May decrees were fully implemented, the salary of non-medical personnel would be below the subsistence level.
In 3.3 thousand medical institutions, under this condition, the average salary of this part of the employees was below the average for the region. At the end of 2017, only 814 Russian hospitals could reach the regional average earnings of non-medical workers. Based on this, it can be assumed that at the end of 2017, the May decrees could not actually be implemented in most Russian medical institutions. nine0010
The government reported on the implementation of the May Decrees in April 2018. “The salaries of teachers, medical workers, university professors and cultural workers, kindergarten teachers and social workers have reached the targets set in the May decrees,” Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in the State Duma.
The press service of the Ministry of Health told RBC that the targets set in the May decrees for the salaries of medical workers for the fourth quarter of 2017 have been met. “According to Rosstat, in the first half of 2018, in some regions, wage targets were not achieved.
At the end of the year, the targets will be met. The corresponding level of wages for other personnel of institutions (accountants, lawyers, cleaners of industrial premises, etc.) was provided in accordance with the employment contracts of employees, ”the department’s response says. nine0010
The May decrees were initially unrealistic, Larisa Popovich, director of the HSE Institute of Public Health, noted in a conversation with RBC. “In 2012, when decrees were issued, and then the Health Development Program was approved, we at the institute calculated how much money would need to be allocated for salaries from the envisaged health care funds in terms of the number of doctors and their salaries, and came to the conclusion that if the decrees were fulfilled in full and according to all staff plans, then doctors will have to spend up to 90% of regional budgets for healthcare,” the expert said.
One of the methods for fulfilling the May decrees is to transfer doctors to an incomplete, but formally increased rate, she notes.
“The state needs to come up with an effective and realistic way to increase the salaries and motivation of doctors,” Popovich concluded.
Medical workers noticed a sharp increase in salaries at the beginning of 2018, Viktor Kolkutin, co-chairman of the Guild for the Protection of Medical Workers, told RBC. “Before the elections, they began to pay very large salaries, but now these payments are being reduced,” he says. In January-March 2018, salaries, as RBC wrote, increased significantly in a number of scientific institutions and hospitals. nine0010
Photo: Vasily Kuzmichenok / TASS
In June, RBC published a study on the salaries of employees of Russian cultural institutions, also prepared based on data from the bus.gov.ru website. Only in 737 institutions out of 16.4 thousand the average salary of an employee turned out to be higher than the average for the region. In only 11% of state cultural institutions in Russia, the average salary was 90% of the average for the region, in many organizations it is below the subsistence level in the region.
The study showed that in 2017, in all regions of the country, the average salary of workers in cultural institutions was lower than the average salary. nine0010
In the course of the study, RBC examined the reports of all institutions on the website bus.gov.ru in the Healthcare section. The salaries of the employees of each hospital were compared with the average salary in the region.
The ratio of medical and non-medical personnel was calculated on the basis of data from the Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) and the statistical compendium of the Ministry of Health. According to these departments, at the end of 2017, 2.34 million doctors, nurses, nurses and other employees belonging to the middle and junior medical staff worked in state and municipal institutions, including 566.2 thousand doctors, nurses – 1.35 million people, nurses and other junior staff – 424 thousand people. nine0010
According to reports on bus.gov.ru, at the end of 2017, there were about 4 million units in the staff of the Russian medical institutions that hosted them.