Job Market Survey of Medical Informatics Professionals. Stefan Hoffmann and Joan Ash, PhD. Division of Medical Informatics and Outcomes Research,.
Job Market Survey of Medical Informatics Professionals Stefan Hoffmann and Joan Ash, PhD Division of Medical Informatics and Outcomes Research, Oregon Health Sciences University, Portland, OR db implementation standards (SQL/ODBC) ............... 10 (7%)
INTRODUCTION
Respondents were asked to create the ideal candidate by assigning dollar values to a list of ten skill domains using a $1000.00 budget. Results are listed below as skills in order of importance according to mean dollars assigned:
A JAMIA editorial has stated: "The time has come for health care organizations of all types to invest in people skilled in medical informatics" [1]. The determination of the set of abilities that constitute "skill in medical informatics" is one of the central concerns of medical informatics educational programs. The aim of this project was to describe the preferences of employers for graduates of Masters of Science in Medical Informatics programs.
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Interpersonal, Organizational and Relational Skills .......... 190 Clinical Experience or Training 175 Written 3. and Oral Communication..................................... 165 4. Database Creation and Management 155 Programming 5. Languages and Coding............................... 120 120 6. Administrative and Business Functions 7. Statistical and Epidemiological Outcomes, Application... 120 120 8. Training, Teaching and Educational Experience 100 9. and Clinical Research..................................... Basic 90 10. Computer Network and Connection Protocols
METHODS A survey containing a list of 69 relevant skills was mailed to 1000 randomly selected professionals in the field. Respondents were asked to rank these skills according to perceived utility.
DISCUSSION
The results show preferences for organizational behavior and communications skills over technical credentials. Cowey, MacNeill and Angus have written that "Reviewing medical and healthcare informatics programs reveals that most target the development of theoretical healthcare informaticians," whom they describe as "... .fundamentally scientists, conceivers of new knowledge and creators of new tools, often driven by their own interests." They contrast these people to the "Applied Healthcare Informaticians," who must be "...able to understand the problem.. .and deliver the (optimal) solution that addresses the need," and "whose primary measure of success is the production of quality deliverables" [5].
The survey's skill list was compiled with information collected from three sources: interviews with local medical informatics professionals, a review of all available curricula of medical informatics programs around North America, and relevant employment advertisements obtained from various sources.
The recipient list consisted of a total of 1000 prospective employers randomly sampled in approximately equal parts from three sources: the 1998 versions of the HIMSS and AMIA directories, and a list of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) vendors [2, 3, 4]. RESULTS
References
One hundred and forty eight of the original 1000 surveys sent out were completed and returned. The ten most chosen skills are shown below, in descending order.
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I.Knowledge of the types of clinical information and how such information is generated and utilized 49 (33%) 2. Demonstrated Interpersonal Skills.......................... 46 (31%) 3. Relational Databases / Data Structures 32(22%) 4. Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Development ...... 32(22%) 5. Change Management 22(15%)
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6. Project Management..................................... 22(15%) 7. Knowledge of the roles of different providers in HC including clinician practice observation 21(14%) 8. User Interface Design..................................... 21 (14%) 9. Development of internet-based info resources 20 (13%) 10. File-based data management, query languages and modern
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Lorenzi NM, Garduer RM, Pryor A, Stead WW Medical Informatics: The Key to an organization's place in the new health care eivironmentJ. Am Med Inform Assoc, 1995:391-394 American Medical Informatics Association 1998 Yearbook and Directory, Timonium, MD, iDawson Publications, 1998. HIMSS Directory, 1998 Comprehensive Guide to Electronic Medical Health Records - 1998 Ed., Health Mgmt. Data, pub. Covvey, DH, MacNeill JE, and Angus, HH The need for a skills-focussed applied healthcare infornatics curriculum Proc AMIA Annu Fall Symp 1999;505-509
