Despite Recession, Healthcare Management Outlook is Bright
The recession has hit deep and wide unsettling more than 5 million Americans from their steady 9-to 5 jobs. Many employees have found only dead ends in their current industry. But even in these difficult times, the health care industry has managed to add more than 500,000 jobs since December 2007, according to the Wall Street Journal. In all, the health care industry is growing by an average of more than 17,000 jobs a month.
Layoff Victims become Healthcare Employees
Many of those new employees are victims of layoffs, who have had no prior health care industry experience. These newcomers are applying the job skills they learned in banking, information technology, communications and finance to jobs in the health care industry. There are many good opportunities for people who want to work in health care management or administration. The industry needs good people in information technology, in finance, both domestically and overseas. If you have a proven record in managing similar things it’s not that different.
Get Some Better Career Health
It is highly recommended that laid-off professionals begin a health care career, especially public health. If you have some related degree and you go and start with an online healthcare degree program, or even earn an online professional certificate, it can help you transition to a new career in the health care industry.
Skills you used in your former job are equally applicable to health care related professions, such as:
• Finance – With estimates as high as $1.5 trillion for the health care overhaul the Obama administration is backing it is certain that anyone with skills in finance and a health care-related degree or certificate will have good prospects for a position in the health care industry.
• Information Technology – An additional 212,000 IT jobs are projected to be created if the health care reform program put forth by the Obama administration passes. Industry analysts say there just aren’t that many people who are currently qualified to be health technology experts
• Communications – Health care is already a competitive industry and people with skills in communications and marketing are always in need. But adding a health care management degree can help push a candidate to the top of the list in a crowded field of communicators.
• Project Management – Digitizing health care records, computer systems that monitor patient and physician scheduling, addition of new medical technologies, all of these additions require a systematic change in how a health care system operates. This is where a good project manager is needed.
So whether you were laid off from your job as a banker, lawyer or CEO, a position in the health care industry could be yours with the right educational addition to your resume. Consider getting your online degree in healthcare management or administration. It just might turn your luck around. There are several hundred from which to choose, so take some careful time to examine the programs that are most appropriated to meet your personal needs.