10 future jobs in healthcare

Managing a hospital without any beds and advising customers on what kind of health insurance plans fits their needs will be tasks assigned to new jobs in healthcare, according to Frost & Sullivan partner Reenita Das.

“Without a doubt, the jobs are novel, without precedent, and will need extensive training,” Das wrote in Forbes. “Being aware of these will be important not just for preparing the workforce, but also to prevent some of these roles from becoming a reality.

Here are 10 jobs healthcare organizations may need to fill—or protect themselves against—in the coming years:

1. Reconstructive Surgery 3D Printing Specialist: A technician in charge of generating tissues in 3D printing applications.
2. Voice Assistant Healthcare Content Specialists: Someone with a healthcare background to more effectively build out content for voice-based virtual assistants like Amazon’s Alexa.
3. Robotic Clinical Documentation Scribes: The human supervisor checking the work of artificial intelligence and voice recognition software taking over clinical documentation.
4. Virtual Hospital Manager: The same as a regular hospital manager, but for “virtual hospitals” which are entirely based around telehealth, like Mercy Virtual Care Center in St. Louis.
5. Precision Medicine Compounding Pharmacist: Precision medicine may make bulk pharmaceutical drugs obsolete, but a compounding pharmacist will still need to feed an artificial intelligence platform with the right patient information.
6. Epigenetic Counselors: An evolution of a genetic counselor dealing with heritable changes outside DNA sequences and advising patients on their associated risk factors.
7. Health Finances Planner: Think of it as healthcare’s version of a personal financial advisor—someone who assist people in choosing the right kind of insurance coverage and making smart contributions to health savings accounts to cover anticipated needs.
8. Brain Neurostimulation Specialist: The first of three roles Das listed which may be unethical or downright illegal. Some of the tasks undertaken by this specialist sound straight out of science fiction, like enhancing a patient’s concentration and focus through neurostimulation—or even becoming the “drug dealers of tomorrow” by simulating the effects of hallucinogenics.
9. Health Data Hacker: Already a major concern for health systems, more technology will only give hackers more targets, like those virtual hospitals or assistants.
10. Biological Terrorist: The “darkest possible role” on the list, Das wrote technological advances may make it possible to engineer biological weapons that are both fatal and resistant to current treatments.