The healthcare industry is the single largest industry in the United States, and healthcare jobs abound. Healthcare jobs can be found in nine different segments of the industry: hospitals; nursing and residential care facilities; offices of physicians; offices of dentists; offices of other health practitioners, including chiropractors, optometrists, podiatrists, occupational and physical therapists, psychologists, audiologists, speech-language pathologists, and dietitians; home healthcare providers; outpatient care centers; mobile healthcare services such as those provided by ambulances and rescue helicopters; and medical and diagnostic laboratories. The United States has the greatest healthcare industry in the world, although misunderstood problems with healthcare insurance in the country often blur that fact.
Seven of the 20 fastest growing occupations are within the healthcare industry. By 2016, close to three million new healthcare jobs are expected to be created, according to research experts.
Most workers in the healthcare industry have two-year college degrees or specialized post-high school training. Needless to say, those who practice diagnostics, treatment, and management have a Master's Degree or Ph.D. These are the jobs within healthcare that earn the most money as well.
Across the industry, taking all healthcare jobs and positions into consideration, the average weekly pay is close to $600.
Personalities
To be in the healthcare profession, a person should have great patience, great physical and mental stamina, and be able to maintain a clear head even under emergency conditions. Those involved in diagnostics and treatment should have steady hands and nerves. All people who want to be involved in the healthcare industry should also have a lot of compassion and be passionate about wanting to save and improve people's lives.
Many critics of the healthcare industry want to see improvements in healthcare accessibility, understanding, and quality. And many, including pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, say that Americans need to have greater ''health literacy'' so that they can practice preventive medicine instead of waiting for chronic conditions that require huge amounts of money and treatment to set in.
Paul Levy, the CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, has written in his blog:
The main value of transparency is not necessarily to enable easier consumer choice or to give a hospital a competitive edge. It is to provide creative tension within hospitals so that they hold themselves accountable. This accountability is what will drive doctors, nurses, and administrators to seek constant improvements in the quality and safety of patient care. So, even if we can't compare hospital to hospital on several types of surgical procedures, we can still commend hospitals that publish their results as a sign that they are serious about self-improvement.Dr. Kevin Fickenscher, Perot Systems' Executive Vice President of International Healthcare, addressing the problematic aspects of the current healthcare system, said in a podcast in early July of 2008:
I think the…challenge is the rapid pace of change that's needed to deal with the quality and the cost pressures of this industry…I think that we need to use approaches to using the technology that work at a macro system level. It's using data mining statistical approaches if you will to identify information about patients that we need to use in decision support…First, we're actually going to shift from expert-based care to system-supported practice…Second, we're going to shift away from medicine that is appropriate for mass delivery…we're going to really shift to individualized medicine. The third component is…that we…will embed support for health into a person's living environment.And Louis Burns, Vice President and General Manager of Intel's Digital Health Group, says, ''Today is a great day for consumers around the world. The technology industry is combining strengths with the healthcare industry to create a more robust set of products that work together seamlessly to help us care for ourselves and each other in a better way.''
Conclusion
The healthcare industry is undergoing great changes and constant evolution and expansion. Healthcare jobs offer great opportunities for those with the right aptitude.
