A dip compared to Q2, but still up from last year
Health IT job postings for the third quarter 2014 saw a moderate slump this time around, falling 4 percent from the previous quarter. The numbers weren't all underwhelming, though, as a new jobs report lays out.
The report, published by healthcare job network HEALTHeCAREERs, includes analysis of nearly 75,000 job postings across 11 sectors in healthcare. And, as officials noted, the biggest growth sectors did not include health IT. In fact, health IT saw the second lowest growth rates in job postings, second only to physician/surgeons.
Despite waning numbers from the previous quarter – a 4 percent decline – health IT did see a modest 5 percent Q3 increase in job posting growth when compared to Q3 2013.
[See also: Health IT jobs garner big bucks.]
Drilling down into the numbers further, database management fared remarkably well, with a whopping 54 percent increase in job postings when compared with last quarter. The $1.9 billion that investors have poured into analytics companies since 2011 certainly didn't hurt, report authors pointed out.
As recent analysis from IDC Health Insights projected, healthcare data volume in 2012, which was pegged at 500 petabytes, will surge to a whopping 25,000 petabytes by 2020, necessitating a demand in jobs related to big data.
"Technology to make sense of this massive quantity of information will be essential," wrote HEALTHeCAREER officials in the report.
Quality assurance job postings also saw significant growth from Q2, up 42 percent.
[See also: Health informatics jobs growing.]
Also notable, as report findings illustrated, was that registered nurses job positions saw a 204 percent increase compared to this time last year, with officials pointing to RN dissatisfaction with electronic health record systems as one reason behind the numbers. Nearly 80 percent of RNs from a recent Black Book report said they consider the reputation of the hospital's EHR choice when choosing where they want to work.
