Healthcare is a high-growth industry that is relatively recession-resistant, meaning it continues to grow and add jobs, even in a recessive economy. However, jobs may be shifted or redistributed from one area to another, as technology changes, as trends evolve, and demands ebb and flow for various specialties and modalities of medicine.

The implementation of EMR (electronic medical records) is causing some of this change to occur in the workforce.

If your employer has not yet completed the transition to EMR and fully implemented this technology, you may be wondering how your job will be affected, and if your job will be eliminated completely.

If your job has anything to do with patient documentation or information management, you will be affected to some degree. The extent to which your job is affected, and whether or not your job is eliminated, depends on your flexibility and adaptability. The good news is that the American Medical News recently published a report showing that EMR implementation does not always result in job cuts, and sometimes new jobs are created when EMR is implemented.

How can you ensure that your job is one of the ones that saved, as opposed to being one of the jobs that is eliminated? How can you keep your job and come through the EMR implementation with your job intact? Even if you do not expect to lose your job, it may be helpful to know how to prepare for the EMR implementation so that you are ready for the long, arduous process.

If you are part of the medical records team, or the Health Information Management team, your job could be at risk in an EMR transition, unless you are proactive, flexible, and adaptable. In any employment situation, when change happens, the people who are flexible enough to "go with the flow" are the ones who will succeed.

Here are some tips that may help you save your job, and to prepare to successfully endure the EMR transition:

• Communicate: Ask questions – when will the transition take place? How can you help? How will your responsibilities change? Be sure to communicate your willingness to take on new responsibilities and learn new skills and processes.
• Learn: Once you know what is needed by your employer, you can take steps to either take new classes, or training. If you have been primarily in a paper-based role, you will need to be comfortable with new technical skills and software.
• Tweak: Monitor your progress and check in with your supervisor to make sure they are pleased with your new responsibilities. Be sure that you are on the same page with the changes in your role. You can’t possibly communicate too much during a major transition such as this.
• Adapt: Implement your new skills, and amaze your coworkers!

What new skills are needed for use with EMR?

According to Shawn Riley, owner of HealthTechnica.com, the following are some examples of skill sets that are in high demand:

• Process Improvement:Whether your facility is paper-based or electronic, process improvement skills are a must in today's healthcare environments. If you can increase your knowledge of process work flows and how to streamline them, you will succeed in any environment!
  Some of the most in-demand skill sets, according to Riley, are LEAN and Six-Sigma methodologies of process improvement. A Six Sigma Blackbelt certification is a very desirable and valuable asset for healthcare employers. Value stream mapping and work flow mapping are also important skills.
  
• Project Management:"Electronic applications will require a much higher level of project management skills then the paper world," Riley states. "Project management skills are desperately needed throughout healthcare. Not only will you KEEP your job, but this skillset is likely to get you a great raise!" he adds. Riley suggest a PMP certification to solidify your project management skills.

Riley states that often the medical records staff, or health information management team, may evolve into a content management team. Even after EMR is implemented, "the influx of paper from patients (insurance information, patient orders, etc) starts to become a problem...The solution is to bring in an Enterprise Content Management system. This solution is almost always adopted and run by the health information management (HIM) group. So, the HIM folks that used to pull charts, are now scanning documents into the EMR and assembling them for the providers.

"Often the HIM and secretarial staff will take on the roles of user maintenance, audit, change control, and sometimes even become informatics analysts," Riley concludes.