Best Healthcare IT Certifications for 2014

Healthcare IT is booming as health systems make bigger investments in technology and telecommunications. Today there are a number of certifications that specifically target IT for healthcare from a mix of IT industry vendors as well as healthcare-focused organizations. Here's our pick of the top 5 healthcare IT certs for 2014.

The Depression-era bank robber Willie Sutton is supposed to have been asked why he robbed banks, and his supposed answer is enshrined in our national folklore: "Because that's where the money is." Even though this exchange seems never to have occurred, going where the money is, or following the money to where it goes, remains a time-honored practice in choosing good targets for work, both legal and criminal.

Money spent on healthcare in the United States represents roughly 18% of the entire U.S. economy. According to the National Coalition on Health Care, national health spending reached $2.9 trillion in 2013 and is expected to increase to $4.72 trillion by 2021, surpassing the growth of the overall economy in the U.S. Also promising is the economic outlook study by Premier (Spring 2013, p. 52) that found health systems are making their biggest capital investments -- 43% -- in healthcare IT and telecommunications, an increase of about 4% since Fall 2011. The trend is expected to continue, and that means there will be plenty of jobs in healthcare IT.

That's why it should come as no surprise at all that there are numerous certifications that specifically target IT for healthcare. Likewise, it's reasonable to expect this number to grow, both in terms of sponsoring organizations and in the number of credentials on offer, in the years ahead.

The size and growth of this market also explains the composition of the IT certification players, where we see a mix of industry organizations such as CompTIA that track gross economic and employment trends very carefully, along with a handful of healthcare-focused IT organizations, often with a mixture of healthcare and IT professionals at their helms.