Tech skills are a hot commodity in healthcare, whether you’re working in a large health system or a small healthcare practice, especially amid burnout for both tech professionals and healthcare workers. From strong data analytics skills to clinical informatics, database management and cybersecurity, many critical skills are in demand.
Health IT professionals who combine both business skills with tech expertise will have an edge, according to Mara Daiker, senior director of professional development at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS).
“Cross-functional skills such as communication, collaboration, change management, and the ability to translate technical concepts for clinical and executive teams are also becoming essential,” Daiker said. “Professionals who can combine technical expertise with healthcare domain knowledge and strategic thinking are most likely to be successful.”
In addition, skills such as data analytics, data visualization and predictive analytics are needed that focus on optimizing workflows and systems, Daiker said.
Health IT professionals are a bridge between technologists and clinicians while helping both teams make sense of analytic insights, AI outputs and cybersecurity risks, Daiker explained.
And with many health systems consolidating, that means bigger data and broader patient populations to serve, said Luke Carignan, senior strategy director for healthcare at Phenom, an applied AI company that offers a talent intelligence platform. He noted how health IT professionals must be able to communicate on tech matters across different roles.
“The people who can take something complicated and make it land with a nurse, a CFO or a board member are the ones who actually move the needle,” Carignan said.
Data and Informatics in Healthcare
Healthcare has a ton of data in EHRs that allows data scientists to predict patient outcomes and study population health trends. Skills needed in data science to study these trends include critical thinking and statistical analysis.
Informaticists can serve as a “bridge” between AI vendors and clinicians, Carignan said.
Learning how to “pull and analyze data” using SQL, Python and the basics of statistics is “table stakes,” Carignan said.
In addition to strong analytics skills, data analytics professionals in healthcare need to know how to build a dashboard that is easy to read, Carignan said.
“But in healthcare specifically, you have to understand what the numbers represent,” Carignan said. “Knowing that a 30-day readmission is a real patient bouncing back to the hospital changes how you do the analysis.”
For medical data analyst roles, be sure to learn how claims and clinical data work, Carignan advised. That includes the coding systems and reporting requirements from regulators such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
As far as data management in healthcare, a key goal is data interoperability. That’s why learning how to work with healthcare data standards is key, Carignan said.
To become a data analytics professional you can pursue academic programs in informatics and health data analytics. For example, universities such as Carnegie Mellon offer master’s programs in healthcare analytics. Another school, USF Health offers a graduate certificate in health informatics in addition to a master’s degree program.
Tech professionals pursuing data analytics in healthcare should understand organizational economics, according to Shahid Shah, chairman of the board at nonprofit Netspective Foundation, which provides custom software for medical and clinical researchers.
“The best analysts understand how reimbursement incentives, clinician behavior, utilization management, and operational politics shape data generation in the first place,” Shah said.
Several experts highlighted the ability to translate across clinical care, operational workflows and AI systems.
“Informatics specialists increasingly mediate between clinicians, administrators, compliance teams, and autonomous systems,” Shah said.
Carignan considers the clinical informatics specialist the most important role in healthcare right now because this person must make sense of all the data in clinical workflows.
“The best informaticists are clinicians (i.e. nurses, doctors, pharmacists) who also speak technology,” Carignan said. “They can sit next to a physician, watch them struggle with a workflow and fix it. As AI moves into the clinic, these are the people who will decide whether it works or quietly gets ignored.”
In addition to learning Python, machine learning and statistics, a key trait that data scientists need in healthcare is judgment, Carignan said.
“Can you tell when a model is biased? Do you know how to validate it in a setting where being wrong has real patient consequences?” Carignan asked. “That's the actual bar.”
Applying AI in Healthcare
The healthcare industry is actively pursuing AI in areas such as analytics, clinical documentation, workflow automation and operational decision-making, Daiker said. However, the industry is still in early adoption phases, particularly in scaling AI “responsibly, securely and effectively,” she added.
“HIMSS research shows that most health systems are already leveraging some form of AI and increasingly view it as a core part of digital transformation rather than a future initiative,” Daiker said. “AI is helping organizations improve efficiency, reduce administrative burden, enhance predictive analytics, strengthen patient engagement, and support clinical decision-making.”
Although AI will automate tasks in healthcare such as documenting clinical visits, health IT professionals are still needed to govern, contextualize and validate AI as well as operationalize AI responsibly, Daiker said.
Tech pros should learn about the newly emerging role of AI governance in healthcare with the pressure to conform to regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
“One subtle trend is that healthcare organizations will likely create entirely new layers of operational governance around AI outputs, workflow orchestration, and provenance tracking,” Shah said.
Carignan describes AI in healthcare as more of a people problem than a technology problem.
“You can buy any AI tool you want,” he said. “If you don't have the internal team to evaluate it, govern it, train clinicians on it and integrate it into how they actually work, it dies on the vine.”
The health systems that will succeed with AI are the ones that will reskill the analysts, nurses and operations personnel already on the payroll, according to Carignan.
HIMSS offers online webinars in areas such as “harnessing AI” in healthcare. In addition, an emerging area to pursue is prompt engineering for clinical AI, Carignan said.
Healthcare Cybersecurity Skills
Healthcare CISOs must know the technical infrastructure and also be an effective executive. They must be able to explain in a board meeting why a ransomware attack is a patient safety matter rather than an IT issue, according to Carignan.
“The CISOs who can do both are getting hired at a premium,” he said.
“On the security side, the dominant skills are about defending a regulated environment that's under constant attack,” Carignan said. “HIPAA knowledge is the floor. Above that, it's incident response, identity and access management and protecting all the connected medical devices in a hospital.”
That includes learning how to secure devices such as infusion pumps and imaging machines.
Cybersecurity has a direct impact on patient safety, particularly during a supply chain threat or ransomware attack, Daiker noted.
“Ransomware has become the operational risk for health systems, and people who can stand up a real defense against it are getting hired fast,” Carignan said.
Key skills in demand in healthcare cybersecurity include risk management, incident response and data privacy, Daiker noted.
Healthcare cybersecurity involves securing clinical systems such as EHRs, medical devices and AI-enabled platforms. The industry also has a need for identity and access management, cloud security, incident response, and compliance skills, she added.
Certification options include the HIMSS Certified Professional in Healthcare Information and Management Systems or industry certifications from ISC2, CompTIA or AHIMA, Daiker suggested.
“Hands‑on experience via healthcare security operations, incident response exercises, and involvement in governance committees is essential to prepare for both specialist and executive‑level responsibilities,” Daiker said.
Health IT professionals will not simply be IT support representatives, Daiker suggested. It will be critical for informatics and cybersecurity teams to work together and actively participate in training, change management and continuous feedback loops, she stressed.
“Aligning around patient safety, workforce efficiency, and organizational readiness and resilience creates a common vision that bridges clinical, operational, and administrative priorities,” Daiker said.
What’s Ahead for Health IT Roles
Looking ahead, expect to see more specialization of roles as health systems consolidate, particularly on data teams with population health analysts and value-based care analysts, Carignan said.
Meanwhile, generalists will still have a place in health systems to “connect dots across silos,” he said.
Also expect to see consolidation of roles in health IT, Shah predicted.
“I suspect many future healthcare technology roles will emerge from combinations of informatics, integration engineering, compliance automation, and AI governance rather than traditional siloed IT disciplines,” Shah said.
Throughout the career journey of a health IT security professional, continuous professional development and upskilling will be essential to continued success, Daiker said.
