The healthcare IT job market has been on upswing since the adoption of the federal stimulus bill in 2009 and its accompanying HITECH Act. Today, people seeking jobs in the field continue to find a welcoming market, one still on an upward trajectory, according to a new report.

Published in the October issue of Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, the report found that 2.5 percent of healthcare job openings between 2007 and 2011 were related to electronic health record implementation, or other health IT initiatives.

The study findings, published in  EHR Intelligence and titled “Tracking Labor Demand with Online Job Postings: The Case of Health IT Workers and the HITECH Act,” showed an 86 percent increase in job listings each month related to electronic health records or clinical informatics.

[See also: Why is informatics the top new career?.]

Among the 434,282 health IT job listings between 2007 and 2011, EHR implementation support was the most sought-after skill, mentioned by 43 percent of listings. Thirty-nine percent of health IT job openings were advertised by healthcare providers; and 42 percent of health IT job openings were advertised by health IT vendors, EHR Intelligence reports.

This new study follows a report issued last June by Burning Glass Technologies, showing positive growth for the health informatics sector. Since 2007, postings for health informatics jobs have increased 10 times faster than healthcare jobs overall, according to Burning Glass.

[See also: Infographic: Recent IT hiring numbers.]

Using data from online job postings, Burning Glass, a Boston-based labor market analytics firm, partnered with the Education Advisory Board, a membership-based research company, to examine the health informatics job market.

The study found that healthcare informatics includes a range of positions that involve the collection, handling and processing of clinical information for a variety of purposes, from billing to medical quality assurance. Also, informatics has become increasingly integrated into the management of clinical care.

Last May, Joyce Sensmeier vice president, informatics at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, called informatics “a top career in healthcare” because those who master the art of combining patient care with health IT skills are in a better position to demand more pay, expand their growth potential and become an integral part of a growing dynamic health organization, Nicole Lewis reported in Healthcare IT News. 

"Clinicians with informatics skills are perfectly poised to expand their role at healthcare organizations that have already adopted electronic health records and are now getting ready to reap the rewards by analyzing the data from those systems," Sensmeier said.