Interested in health care but not necessarily in working directly with patients? One of the most popular and growing medical-related fields is health information technology. Employment of health information technicians is expected to grow much faster than average for all occupations through 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, because of rapid growth in the number of medical tests, treatments, and procedures that will be increasingly scrutinized by health insurance companies, regulators, courts, and consumers. And, if that's not convincing enough, President Bush himself has declared improved health technology one of his administration's objectives.

Career Opportunities of Presidential Proportions
"By computerizing health records, we can avoid dangerous medical mistakes, reduce costs, and improve care," announced President Bush in his January 2004 State of the Union address. As such, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONCHIT) and the American Health Information Community (AHIC) were established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) with the goal of improving healthcare through information technology.

The objective is to convert all patient records to electronic health records in the next 10 years, so that no matter which doctor you visit, he or she will be able to pull up your complete medical records. That means big opportunities and a tremendous job outlook for aspiring health technicians.

Hail to the Books
According to the BLS, most employers prefer to hire Registered Health Information Technicians (RHIT), who must pass a written examination offered by the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), so be prepared to hit the books if you want to pursue health technology.

In fact, you'll most likely have to earn an associate degree in health technology - available at many career education providers as well as through traditional colleges and universities - with coursework that includes anatomy, physiology, medical terminology, statistics, and computer science. When researching health technician programs, you should seek those that are accredited by CAHIIM, the Commission on Accreditation for Health Informatics and Information Management Education, which is the accrediting organization for degree-granting programs in health informatics and information management.

In addition, health technicians with a strong background in medical coding will be in particularly high demand, notes the BLS. That's in part because of new government regulations, as well as the increase in managed care, which both require lots of insurance claim paperwork.

Ready to get started in your health technician career? The White House thinks it's a smart career move.

RELATED ARTICLES: