Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

["Gina Norman" <gina.norman AT nortelnetworks.com>]

Title: RE: [internetworkers] IT in healthcare

Colleen said:

> The better solution is for our political leaders to be
> convinced that there are excellent technology people out there who would do an
> excellent job in health care technology, and then have these people talk with
> the CEOs of the health care, life science, pharma, and biotech companies in
> this area to sell them on hiring these folks.  This is the more impactful
> approach, but obviously the approach that would take more time.  It would
> be a win-win solution, and I think that the health care/life science/pharma/biotech
> companies who recognize this first are going to be the ones with the
> competitive advantage.

I'm not sure that this is completely the same thing, but I was talking to a friend of mine who is a director at a clinical trials company and he was saying that they're *very short* of project managers (for studies) and are having difficulty finding people to hire.  (Rather like certain other industries we could mention a few years back).  Interestingly, he believed that good project managers from the IT/IS side of the house would probably do well in those roles, as the _basic skills_ of a pm don't have a great deal to do with the type of project you're managing.  LARGE CAVEAT:  obviously it's a *enormous* advantage for a project manager (pm) to know the subject matter, as he/she can then better predict where there might be snags, where additional resources might be needed, etc.; however, if the choice is between someone who can't pm their way out of a grocery sack, but happens to have healthcare experience (a safe hire), and someone who can pm, but whose experience is in IS/IT (a risky hire)... well, maybe companies should consider the very good IS/IT pm.

Ok, perhaps not related at all, but it was an interesting conversation anyway.

-Gina