Seeking some help and guidance about Healthcare IT Leadership role

Hello all,
I'm here because I'm trying to map out my career.

I am finishing a masters in Healthcare Informatics. Currently my job is in health adminsitration. The courses in my degree involve some IT classes because of the informatics aspect. I am posting here because I wanted some advice on how I can branch from adminsitration to more IT.

To give you guys an idea, I "know of" someone who double majored in accounting and computer science and landed a job as an Director of IT Auditing / Senior IT Auditor. He didn't land it right out of school, of course but I bring that up to say that is what I'm looking for. A combination of healthcare and CS / IT.

I don't want to work in the hardware side. I prefer software/ programming, info security since healthcare deals with vast amount of confidential data. And those areas will be more software??

So I'm asking, what are non-hardware IT jobs I can combine with Health Adminsitration / Health Information Managament? I have done some research and it seems maybe Info Systems could better serve my purpose?

My plan is this:
(1) finish MS Health Informatics
(2) then go for MBA IT Management from WGU
(3) then go for a PhD in IS / CIS / CS / IT? Because 3 masters degrees will just look funny.

basically I want a healthcare IT leadership role. I have been learning SQL, Python, and Java. So if I can apply that health adminsitration / health info management?

Realistically I know it takes time in addition to the training and education. So my goal is to land a director role in about 10 - 12 years from now. What can I do? What should I do?

Which IT fields wouldnt require working with hardware & realistically can be combined with healthcare?

If we broke up my career into 3 blocks of 4 years, what path do you think I should follow? I.e.:

[Block 1: years 1 - 3]
- leave adminsitration / info management and get into analyst roles

[Block 2: years 4 - 6]
- finish up MBA & certificates and land job in speciality area

[Block 3: years 7 - 9]
- land managerial roles

[Block 4: years 10 - 12]
- have all schooling done, main / core certificates completed
- just keep applying for director roles until I land something

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Comments

JDMurray

Which path do you think will leave you feeling the happiest and most fulfilled?

yoba222

Your bachelor's degree gave you a solid 20% bump in ROI in terms of job opportunities and salary negotiation. More open doors and that's a good thing. Upgrading it to a master's bumps that 20% to about 25% total. I'm picking arbitrary but somewhat ballpark numbers.

Adding a second master's is going to move that 25% to about 26%. Sometimes it will actually lower the number because it sets off red flags in hiring managers upon seeing a job experience-to-education imbalance. Adding a PhD might bump you up to near 28%. Or drop you to like 5% -- red flags.

There are numerous reasons why people do multiple degrees as well as PhDs. I wouldn't do another master's and then a PhD solely for job placement ROI though.

Personally, I work in information security and the tasks often include IT security auditing, penetration testing, and hardware/software configuration. There is a commonly held stereotype held among sys admins that IT auditors are a bunch of pencil pushers that don't know what they're talking about. I get a bit of that vibe from your friend based on your brief description and I might be misinterpreting it.

I guess what I'm getting at is to consider spending some time in the trenches in your first block because it will round you out and make you a much better leader when you get beyond your third block.

paul78

Welcome to TE forums.

I've been a tech exec for the last 10-15 years or so. And my only observation is that everyone's journey is unique. I can't really comment on healthcare since I work predominately in fintech.

Are you currently working in a technology role? If so - what? And what the heck does health administration mean anyways?

If your goal is to become a healthcare tech exec, you may want to focus first at working in the types of roles and companies where you learn more about the business of healthcare.

I can't really comment about your proposed education path since every industry seem to have very different believes about formal education. In general, technologists care more about tangible accomplishments and experience vs paper education.

aspiring_exec wrote:

what are non-hardware IT jobs I can combine with Health Adminsitration/ Health Information Managament?

The obvious choice since you mentioned that you liked software development is to consider focusing on software engineering. Maybe you can try to get a job working as a software engineer for an EHR solution provider.

aspiring_exec wrote:

So my goal is to land a director role in about 10 - 12 years from now. What can I do? What should I do?

Being awesome at your current job would probably be a good start. And developing and demonstrating leadership talent is another.

aspiring_exec wrote:

Which IT fields wouldnt require working with hardware & realistically can be combined with healthcare?

Not sure what you mean but pretty much all fields would apply in one way or another.