Healthcare Organizations Find Clinical Informatics Positions Difficult to Staff, According to Hay Group Study

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A recent Hay Group study found that newly formed clinical informatics positions can be difficult to fill, with 47 percent of healthcare organizations reporting challenges with recruitment, retention or both. In addition, 82 percent of respondents report that these positions are designed to be filled by full-time employees, rather than retaining specialists on a contractual or consulting basis. However, many say these positions originated with temporary agreements.

"These positions are so new and so specialized that it's not surprising to see these professionals capitalizing on the market demand for their services," remarks Dan Mayfield, a healthcare consultant with Hay Group. "Retention will be tough until more talent develops in the market. Also, programmers tend to enjoy the design and implementation project phases, rather than the maintenance and utilization of systems. We see this difference in IT positions across all industries."

A surge in interest regarding clinical informatics positions was created in response to the American Recovery Act's push to implement electronic medical record (EMR) systems to create efficiencies in healthcare, but also to create jobs. Nearly all respondents (96 percent) have begun to create these positions and structure these departments; 32 percent report that they are 1-2 years into the process (the largest segment currently in the timeline). Organizations reporting that they have completed the process of building EMR capabilities and have staffed the departments accordingly, said it took an average of 44 months.

"Nearly every healthcare client I have recently spoken with has clinical informatics positions, and seemed to have created them without much direction or structure. Due to the lack of benchmark data and an understanding of best practices, there has been a lot of improvising," notes Mayfield. "Having a resource available to better understand the market for clinical informatics positions will help our clients greatly as they adapt and adjust going forward."

Responding to market needs, Hay Group is one of the first management consultancies to produce an analysis of newly formed clinical informatics positions in hospitals and health systems. The resulting report features information and statistics regarding recruitment, retention and rewards for these newly formed IT positions.

Clinical informatics positions have been added to Hay Group's 2011 Healthcare Compensation Survey, which is now open for submissions. Data from that survey will be available in July 2011.

About the survey

Hay Group's clinical informatics data is derived from a survey sent to large complex hospitals and health systems in November 2010, when 65 organizations supplied data (50 were integrated health systems with an average of 12 hospitals, the rest were stand-alone hospitals). Typical respondents to the survey include compensation professionals in the Human Resources departments. Hay Group's core compensation database represents compensation practices for almost 3,000 companies and over 6 million employees.

About Hay Group

Hay Group is a global consulting firm that works with leaders to transform strategy into reality. We develop talent, organize people to be more effective, and motivate them to perform at their best. With 86 offices in 48 countries, we work with more than 7,000 clients around the world. Our clients are from private, public, and not-for-profit sectors, across every major industry and represent diverse business challenges. For more than 60 years, we have been renowned for the quality of our research and the intellectual rigor of our work. We transform research into actionable insights. We give our clients breakthrough perspectives on their organization and we do it in the most efficient way to achieve the desired results. Our focus is on making change happen and helping people and organizations realize their potential.

For more information on Hay Group's healthcare practice, services or this study, please contact Colin Owens at [email protected] or 800-776-0486.

 

Contacts

Hay Group
Colin Owens, 800-776-0486
[email protected]