What would be your recommendations for a practicing Nephrologist to switch to a career in Health Care IT ?

Thanks a lot for all the detailed replies. First of all, I want to clarify that this is not about me. I am asking this question on behalf of a friend. She is looking for a part-time or full time health information management job in EMR field . She doesn't have any technical expertise, but is looking for something like a clinical content editior for EMR. Any guidance in this regard would be greatly appreciated

Answers

It really depend where your heart is and where your passion lies, if being a Doctor helping patients that could be fighting for their lives because of their kidney failures doesnt appeal to you I think you are in the wrong profession and you should look at something else
Bes of luck

That's going to depend entirely on your professional exposure to technologies, how deep your understanding of them is, and what technology position you are interested in moving to.

If you want to throw a bit more information our way in relation to your position and where you want to go maybe we can give some better advice.

Generically though, you can look at certifications for particular technologies or functions. For example there are Microsoft's MCSE/MCSD programs for system design/programming, or Prince2 or Project Management Institute qualifications for project management. Most major vendors and platform companies have certifications for their products.

Firstly expect frustrations, it is always greener on the other side.
Secondly I work in a Hospital that has a pretty good culture especially in IT. We have three main IT Departments
1. IT Services -. comprising of Techs and system specialists supporting Servers, Databases, networks, basically anything that plugs into electricity or can connect via wireless
2. Heath & Clinical Service - (This may suit you) It mainly deals with Project work implementing anything to do with IT across the hospital. This is where your experience will be the most value - you will use your knowledge of health and hospital environments to showcase yourself, you will learn how everything is put together, and along the way will learn the systems within IT.
3. Health Information Systems - this is a very good area to get into but is non technical but more processes and software driven the higher you go, and usually involves you sitting behind a desk - this dept looks at patient information, software etc.
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I used to work for IBM (technical), they have a fully functional health dept stream that is geared towards supporting the health stream.
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The higher you go in IT the less technical you get. Expect constant frustrations in IT combined with many heartaches.
You haven't answered what your skills are. A friend of mine is an orthodontist - has a maths degree behind him as well, he can design any database, build servers and can pretty well work anything ou