A recently released infographic based on the results from the 2013 HIMSS Workforce Survey shows a vast majority of hospitals and health systems have plans to both hire additional IT staff and outsource some services during the coming year.
Many of the respondents reported expanding IT departments, as 86 percent reported hiring new staff members in the past year, with more than half hiring between one and five new employees. The new employees were mostly in clinical applications support or help desk positions. Three-quarters of respondents plan to hire additional staff in the coming year. Additionally, few IT departments are shrinking — just 13 percent of respondents reported layoffs last year.
Competitive salaries and enticing benefits programs continue to be essential to hiring and retaining the best IT staff. Professional development opportunities were used by 61 percent of respondents to lure employees, and many others used telecommuting options or tuition reimbursement. To find employees, 70 percent of respondents use job boards and 69 percent use employee referrals.
Despite increasing staffs, 76 percent currently outsource a service rather than hiring staff members directly, and 93 percent have plans to outsource at least one service in the coming year. The top three services provided by an outside vendor are project management, clinical applications and system design and implementation.
The outsourcing may be to compensate for a continuing shortage of qualified IT workers at many hospitals and health systems. About one-third of organizations reported putting IT projects on hold due to lack of staff, and 43 percent said an under-qualified talent pool was the biggest obstacle to fully staffing their department.
The results are based on responses from 224 hospitals and health systems collected by the Health Information Management Systems Society.
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