I have had both good support from IT people and bad support and good support
from clinical background people who had "IT" experience and bad support.
It all depends on the person. Since I am a pharmacist and I have worked in all
areas of pharmacy - retail, inpatient, surgery, LTC, oncology, clinical, drug
information, etc. and have a good deal of computer experience, I am fairly good
at the PHA part of MEDITECH. But if I were to go to another hospital with
another system, it wouldn't matter how good I was with Meditech, if I didn't
re-organize my thinking and learn their computer system and learn how they used
their system and how the people over at that facility worked, I wouldn't be
doing them much good at all. That is a situation where hiring from within might
help you because you will get someone who is already familiar with how your
people work, but then if they are not willing to understand how the system works
and work within its constrains, then that internally hired person won't work
out for you either. Whether you hire an IT person or a clinical person,
regardless of the system or the module, the person has to be able to translate
what the system programmers "name" for a field and its supposed use for the
function for the field into the function the user calls it. That can get pretty
scary when an MD, a nurse and a pharmacist all use the same word to mean 3
slightly different things in three different situations but a system uses one
word in one module and another word in another module. There is no
standardization and we wonder why we don't have single payer health care.
As far as the age group goes - I would toss that out the window as
well. There are tons of pharmacists and nurses and probably some MD's out there,
that for some reason or another, are in their mid 50's and are semi-retired and
are building computers and rockets and teaching and doing all sorts of
creative things at home, who would jump at the chance to learn a new system and
be given a project to use their minds on. Our society has got to change its
though process about peoples' careers and jobs. It should no longer be unusual
for a person to have 2 or even 3 completely different careers or "lives" in a
lifetime if they are going to live to be 90 years old.
On a side note: we have people everyday who have bicycling accidents or
other accidents who have minor head injuries - some of them clinicians - some
of them computer whiz kids - who because of these "minor injuries" can no
longer work 40 hours a day or a full 8 hours a day because their brains fatigue
easily, or they suffer some neuromuscular injuries, but their brains are just
as sharp. These people walk a fine line between being "disabled" (because
they really have a tough time qualifying for SSI a lot of times - a most of the
time don't want to) and working jobs that are within the scope of their
educational background. Give these people a chance to learn the systems and do
some work for you. Give them the opportunity to work alongside the users and
to work flexible schedules and to work from home. You will be giving someone a
second chance and you may gain a lifetime loyal employee. Because of all
the "new" (actually not) information about traumatic brain injury that is
coming back from veterans of the Iraq war, eventually there may be more money
put
into studies in brain trauma by the government and this may make it easier to
find and recruit people with the necessary skills and background to do this
sort of analyst work. Its actually a perfect sort of an opportunity for a
clinician with a lot of background whose brain still works overtime, but who
can't work a regular clinical job.
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"Lapointe, Carol (R5)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To
"Gord
Dowling" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "Cyndy G. Zoch" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
07/24/2007 07:15 AM
<[email protected]>
cc
Subject
Re:
[MEDITECH-L] how do you recruit analysts?
Heh.. don’t shut the door on IT … we’re smart people too, generally. J
I have an IT background, been here almost 13 years.. and yes, I’ve learned lots
about health care, the same way health-care people would learn IT.
I can’t imagine I’m the only IT person out here that was able to learn health
care???
Maybe I am…..hmmmmm…..$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
Carol Lapointe
Senior Systems Analyst –
Régie de la santé du Restigouche/Restigouche Health Authority
Campbellton, NB, Canada
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Gord Dowling
Sent: July 23, 2007 7:34 PM
To: Cyndy G. Zoch; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [MEDITECH-L] how do you recruit analysts?
Hi Cindy,
Sorry to hear your troubles. I do not do the recruiting here but do
have some thoughts on the subject.
If at all possible recruit from the outside, clinical people, in their mid to
late 30s, who have migrated to IT.
They are smart people, generally. You can teach them enough of Meditech and how
the dictionaries/parameters affect everything in a few months.
IT people tend to come from the finance and manufacturing world. It’s a whole
other culture. While many are brilliant, they don’t generally understand what
all goes into good patient care and become confused by the expectations of the
new clientele (nurses, doctors, technologists, and technicians). They find
the language of medicine to be totally foreign. That said, for
operations/networks hire IT. That’s their niche.
The reason you should prefer outside over inside is politics, and
man-management. If the new hire has no history with the staff they are going to
deal with
day-to-day it will be easier for that staff to take direction/advice from the
analyst. The downside to this is that the new-hire has to be brought up to
speed on the internal politics of the place while they are trying to learn the
new system. Not a new problem. The IT industry recognizes that it takes 3
months to acclimatize an IT new-hire when they migrate from one position to
another. We are no different in that respect.
Why mid to late 30s? It takes time to acquire a clinical skill set and an IT
skill set. Ten years in a hospital makes you 28 before you even start thinking
about migrating on to IT.
As per your question about pay…
Once you train someone to be a Meditech Clinical of Financial
Analyst they become targets for recruiters. The better their reputation in the
Meditech world, the heavier the recruiting gets. Poaching by your peer
hospitals becomes business fact regardless of backroom agreements to the
contrary.
Your challenge as a manager is to build staff loyalty to the organization, to
the department, and to yourself. Dollars are a factor at the organization
level. If the recruiters can offer a betterment of life-style, you will have a
problem. Note that life-style is not wages. Wages help drive lifestyle
changes. If the lifestyle of the IT analyst is perceived by the analyst to be
significantly inferior to their peers on the clinical side of the house, you
as the manager need to find a way to overcome that perception. If you’ve hired
an RN to be your nursing analyst and the nurses are paid better than she is,
the difference had better be lifestyle. (No shift-work, reduced exposure to
occupational hazards, cleaner working environment, air-conditioning, a perceived
support of the manager they work for. You get the idea.) On the reverse side of
that equation, if you aren’t able to provide a happy workplace, you better
open the cash drawer. Even that won’t be enough since the recruiters currently
promise nirvana in addition to the dollars.
Gord
Gordon Dowling
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Applications Analyst
Huron Perth Healthcare Alliance
Stratford, ON N5A 2Y6
(519)272-8210 ext2268
From: Cyndy G. Zoch [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2007 1:50 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [MEDITECH-L] how do you recruit analysts?
Hello,
For the 4th time in less than a year, we are having to fill the position of
Clinical Analyst. In the past, we have brought in people from the outside that
have had varying degrees of experience with Meditech. Two of the three have
left the organization. The third took another position within the organization.
We are now re-evaluating our recruitment strategy. I’m wondering how you handle
recruitment for such a position and what success you have had with specific
strategies. Specifically, I’d like to know:
1. Do you recruit from the outside or do you try to find someone in-house
to take the position?
2. If you select someone from in-house, do you find it’s best if they have
clinical knowledge and then teach them Meditech or do you try to find people
that are IT savvy and teach them the clinical pieces?
3. If you start with a clinical person, how do you convince them to switch
over to IT? Right now, our clinical employees make much more than our
clinical analyst position pays. Have you had to adjust your pay scales so that
analyst salaries are in line with clinical salaries?
4. Any other advice or suggestions you have
Thanks in advance for your help!
Cyndy Zoch
Information/Public Relations Division Director
Trinity Medical Center
700 Medical Parkway
Brenham, TX 77833
(979)830-7438
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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