HIOs remain small with staffing issues

Seventy percent of health information organizations (HIOs) in the U.S. appear to be small organizations with 10 or fewer employees, according to a survey conducted by the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA).

The societies formed a collaborative workgroup to analyze job opportunities and skill sets required in the HIO setting. The analysis sought to identify current environment staffing models, emerging staffing models and required skill sets to support these organizations.

Representatives from 35 HIOs completed the survey in the spring of 2012—28 of which were operational at the time of the survey. The 35 participating HIOs were located across the country, with representation from each of the 10 regions used by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The average number of employees reported was 11.6 (accounting for both full-time and part-time staff), and the two organizations with the largest staff reported 73 and 48 full- and/or part-time employees, respectively.

While more than 90 percent of organizations have full-time employees, responses showed a broad mix of staffing solutions including full-time and part-time employees, employees who job-share, on-site contractors and outsourcing. The vast majority of positions were compensated at or below the $90,000 salary mark.

Although the HIOs respondents were planning very little expansion through hiring at the time of this survey, over half of the organizations were hiring positions at the bachelor’s level, with desired areas of specialization in finance, accounting, health information managers, health IT, business, provider relations and computer science or IT.

The most commonly identified staffing challenge was a lack of available candidates.

Technology positions dominated both current staffing and the most sought-after skill sets, as reported by the survey participants, with operations positions close behind. The most prevalent existing technology roles were software application support, help desk/support and data integration. The most prevalent existing operational roles were marketing, sales and public relations, project management, administrative assistant and executive management roles.

Data integration positions were the most difficult to fill in the technology category, according to respondents.

The whitepaper is available online.