Healthcare IS Blog

As a contract consultant, every six to 12 months, on average, you’re going to have to transition off of one contract and start another. From time to time, this can be difficult to manage. The challenge can arise when you have 30 days left on your current contract and a new one-year contract becomes available a week or two before your contract ends. It can be difficult to stay two more weeks at your current engagement, knowing that it will soon be over, and having to pass up on a new contract that can secure your income for the next year. So, how do you handle this situation? What can you do ahead of time to make the transition from your current contract as smooth as possible so that you don’t 1) miss out on the new one-year project and 2) do not leave your current client in a bind?

In the white paper entitled Healthcare System Conversions - Key Points To Consider, we outlined three types of conversions (System Upgrade, New Platform/Same Vendor, and New Platform/New Vendor) and five points to consider when planning for a system conversion.  

As you consider a career in Pharmacy IT/informatics you're most likely going to do as much research as you possibly can.

This blog is the third in a series on "Maintaining Disparate Systems." To ensure appropriate pharmacy medication billing, it's imperative that the Charge Description Master (CDM) and Pharmacy Drug Master (PDM) are in sync. The CDM, described as the backbone of the hospital’s revenue cycle, is the key database from which all patient bills are generated.

This blog is the second in a series on "Maintaining Disparate Systems." In the first post we reviewed the definitions and terminology commonly used in healthcare information technology and, more specifically, pharmacy information technology.  This post focuses on the complex challenges of maintaining your formulary and synchronizing it across multiple databases.

Episode 9 is a 10 minute tip segment with David Kushan covering how to find success in an interview when faced with experienced based questions.

If you like what you hear or have an opinion of your own, don’t be afraid to leave us a comment below! Who knows, with your great input you might find yourself joining our guests with an interview of your very own.

Your resume is your most important calling card in your job search. At Healthcare IS we review hundreds of resumes regularly and have outlined the seven most evident segments found on the resumes we evaluate. Continue reading below to discover what these segments are and how you can best utilize them.

A recent case illustrated the following:

When I’m asked this question, it’s usually by someone who’s thinking about getting into this profession and looking for some clarification. Since we’re asked this question quite a bit, we decided to devote a post to the responses we received in a number of podcasts our firm produced over the last four months, which can be found on our resources page.

This blog is the first in a series on “maintaining disparate systems.” This post reviews the terminology and definitions commonly used in healthcare information technology and, more specifically, pharmacy information technology. We live in a world of acronyms, and having a better understanding of the terminology should improve the pharmacist’s communication with the IT department and IT Vendors.

In this TED Talk, Daniel Kraft enthusiastically shared with his audience the remarkable advancements in medicine due to evolving technology. He looked at the three topics below, to name just a few. 

This is a question we hear quite a bit. It's most often asked by pharmacists looking at the pharmacy IT/pharmacy informatics marketplace when considering a possible career transition. We’re also frequently asked this same question by new pharmacy graduates who’ve heard about, or done research into, the pharmacy IT/pharmacy informatics marketplace.

All of us in the staffing business have often heard, "We're in a candidate-driven market right now," or the opposite: "We're in a client-driven market right now." How about, "We are in neither?" The reality of the demand for "A" talent is that hiring the best requires a philosophical approach and process that consistently advocates a sense of urgency for all parties involved.

When you have 22 minutes to spare today, catch this 2013 TED Talk with Joel Selanikio as he uncovers the Big Picture behind Big Data. 

It’s impossible to have an active account on Google+ without witnessing the exponential growth of communities and group discussions whether it’s on a post, discussions within communities or through Hangouts.

A 2010 article in ModernHealthcare.com and HealthcareITNews.com projected the need for at least an additional 50,000 Healthcare IT workers due to the demand being created to obtain Meaningful Use compliance.

The May 2013 issue of Inc. magazine featured an infographic (on page 24) concerning trends in big company hiring. 

Specific references were made to the fact that, for most companies that are hiring, online “job boards” are not producing the results they used to. When it comes to hiring online, employers need to be where the employees are. At the dawn of Internet recruiting in the late ’90s, people looking for jobs would regularly go to job boards or would post their résumés online when they were open to hearing about job opportunities. 

Every time the American economy comes out of a recession, the employment landscape changes. Typically, this occurs due to the adjustments companies have made to survive, as well as the shifts in mindset among employees who were directly affected. As we know, many employees either lost their jobs, had their salaries and/or benefits reduced, or had their roles changed virtually overnight.

Last August Paul Cerrato, Editor of InformationWeek Healthcare, wrote an article entitled “5 Trends Will Reshape Health IT in 2013.” Nearly a year later, we can take a look at those predictions and see where the beginning of 2013 has brought us. 

Meaningful use has been a driving force behind Health IT employment, and as organizations look to make the most of federal funding the demand for resources has increased as well. In the U.S., total employment has grown by 157,000 this past January, while professional unemployment rates are in a downward trend. Also, a notable increase in the demand for specialty trade contractors has led to 26,200 additional contractors (across all industries) in the month of January. 

As a traveling consultant, your job description contains more duties more than just your Health IT project. Working independently or for a firm means that you need to be tracking your own hours and recording your own expenses. Finding a rhythm to staying organized takes time, but with these helpful apps you may find that tracking, and exporting a time and expense report, may be as simple as a few taps on your phone or tablet.

The election has passed, and as Obama moves into his second term we can see that not much will change in the efforts of improving healthcare in the U.S. As we continue to move forward with Health IT initiatives, job demand is growing substantially. Government agencies are working toward a solution to ramp up the workforce of Health IT professionals, but we need the seasoned knowledge of the senior-level experts to lead us in implementation.

The buzz around the election is deafening and Healthcare IS has gathered a few articles that highlight what’s expected to happen next. There are two articles from Health IT-focused sources that touch on the coming year as well as an interview with CHIME’s Sharon Canner.

—  Healthcare IS Team

A new proposed study has been submitted by The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) in hopes of examining six clinics over a period of 14 months to learn more about the effectiveness of Health IT and the impact of workflow and health IT in ambulatory care practices.

It simply amazes me (and I’m not amazed too often) how bad some people are at hiring or building a team. It's almost as if - and I'm not trying to be sarcastic here - some people are trying to mess things up. Otherwise, I can't imagine how someone in a management role could stop, think, and then still do the things they do.

In today's healthcare IT job market standing out in a file of submitted resumes can be a challenge. With an abundance of resumes sent every day, consultants are finding the "thank you, but no thank you" response to be an unfortunate loyal visitor to their inbox.  Inevitably, after weeks of job hunting and hopeful submittals, your frustration builds and begins to chip away at your motivation.