How to hire a Health Informatics Specialist

How to hire a health informatics specialist, step by step

Here's a step-by-step health informatics specialist hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a health informatics specialist job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new health informatics specialist
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a Health Informatics Specialist do?

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1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you start hiring a health informatics specialist, identify what type of worker you actually need. Certain positions might call for a full-time employee, while others can be done by a part-time worker or contractor.

   Determine Employee vs Contractor Status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   Hiring the perfect health informatics specialist also involves considering the ideal background you'd like them to have. Depending on what industry or field they have experience in, they'll bring different skills to the job. It's also important to consider what levels of seniority and education the job requires and what kind of salary such a candidate would likely demand.

   Here's a comparison of health informatics specialist salaries for various roles:

   Type Of Health Informatics Specialist	Description	Hourly Rate
   Health Informatics Specialist	Computer systems analysts study an organization’s current computer systems and procedures and design information systems solutions to help the organization operate more efficiently and effectively. They bring business and information technology (IT) together by understanding the needs and limitations of both.	$31-60
   Epic Consultant	An Epic consultant is responsible for maintaining the organization's database with Epic applications, ensuring the accuracy and efficiency of network systems to support business functions and operations. Epic consultants are usually on the technical side, strategizing solutions to maintain the stability of the database for business needs... Show More	$34-53
   Applications Coordinator	An applications coordinator acts as the contact person for all concerns regarding an application or software. The applications coordinator connects customers to corresponding departments in a company according to their needs, inquiries, and problems... Show More	$16-41

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common Skills:

   • Patient Care
   • EMR
   • HIPAA
   • Data Analysis
   • Epic
   • Health System
   • SAS
   • Home Health
   • Clinical Data
   • Data Collection
   • Extraction
   • Technical Support
   • Training Materials
   • CPOE

   Check All Skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Lead audit of policies and practices to ensure compliance with HIPAA rules and regulations.
   • Assist with designing, managing, building and coordinating information processing for Cerner implementation.
   • Learned SAS and SQL to complete programming tasks independently.
   • Act as a resource for physician and staff post implementation of CPOE
   • Partner with the CMIO to restructure physician informatics functions and accountabilities.
   • Help with ROI and cost benefit analysis and assist with procurement decision making.

   More Health Informatics Specialist duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in the health informatics specialist job description is a good way to get more applicants. A health informatics specialist salary can be affected by several factors, such as the location of the job, the level of experience, education, certifications, and the employer's prestige.

   For example, the average salary for a health informatics specialist in Colorado may be lower than in Hawaii, and an entry-level engineer typically earns less than a senior-level health informatics specialist. Additionally, a health informatics specialist with lots of experience in the field may command a higher salary as a result.

   Average health informatics specialist salary

   $91,323yearly

   $43.91 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level health informatics specialist salary

   $65,000 yearly salary

   Updated June 14, 2025

   Average health informatics specialist salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. Salary	Hourly Rate
   1	Washington	$106,458	$51
   2	Maryland	$106,385	$51
   3	Wisconsin	$101,217	$49
   4	California	$99,701	$48
   5	New York	$99,229	$48
   6	Oregon	$97,242	$47
   7	Arizona	$93,460	$45
   8	New Jersey	$92,402	$44
   9	Illinois	$92,061	$44
   10	Oklahoma	$91,684	$44
   11	Minnesota	$91,116	$44
   12	Michigan	$91,021	$44
   13	Connecticut	$90,728	$44
   14	Massachusetts	$90,290	$43
   15	Pennsylvania	$88,737	$43
   16	Ohio	$86,123	$41
   17	Virginia	$84,316	$41
   18	North Carolina	$83,864	$40
   19	Texas	$80,227	$39

   Average health informatics specialist salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average Salary	Hourly Rate	Job Openings
   1	UW Medicine	$101,887	$48.98
   2	Akron Children's Hospital	$97,993	$47.11
   3	Salinas Valley Health	$97,943	$47.09	1
   4	Accenture	$95,582	$45.95	2
   5	Dana-Farber Cancer Institute	$93,999	$45.19	4
   6	Health Services Advisory Group	$93,147	$44.78
   7	Sysmex	$89,918	$43.23	1
   8	SeKON Enterprise	$87,973	$42.29
   9	Shore Medical Center	$86,635	$41.65
   10	Froedtert Hospital	$85,286	$41.00	6
   11	Memorial Health Systems Corporation	$84,904	$40.82
   12	Medical Science & Computing, LLC	$84,904	$40.82
   13	Yale New Haven Health	$84,073	$40.42
   14	Vivent Health	$84,072	$40.42
   15	Health Research, Inc.	$83,505	$40.15
   16	Wolters Kluwer	$83,349	$40.07
   17	Prime Healthcare	$82,511	$39.67	13
   18	ANJANEYAP	$80,785	$38.84
   19	Catawba Valley Medical Center	$79,098	$38.03
   20	Mayo Clinic	$78,351	$37.67	3

4. Writing a Health Informatics Specialist Job Description

   A health informatics specialist job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. To help get you started, here's an example of a health informatics specialist job description:

   Health Informatics Specialist job description example

   Position Summary: The Clinical Analyst EHR is responsible for working with the end users to ensure optimal utilization of the electronic health record (EHR) in providing quality patient care. As a registered nurse and Clinical Analyst, this role is responsible for providing application configuration support to enhance operational efficiencies and patient safety. The analyst will participate in needs assessment, software design, implementation, testing, issue resolution, documentation and ongoing support. This position is highly visible to clinicians with significant impact on patient safety.
   Minimum Education:
   
   Required: Bachelors Degree
   
   Preferred: Masters Degree
   
   Minimum Experience:
   
   Required: 1-2 years of previous job-related experience
   
   Preferred: 3-5 years of previous job-related experience
   
   Licensure/Certifications:
   
   Required: Current Registered Nurse License State of Illinois
   
   Preferred: Epic Certification
   
   Position Responsibilities:
   
   Analyze workflows of Epic clinical users.
   
   Triage end user issues to determine an optimal solution and either implement that solution or work with internal and external resources to resolve and implement a solution.
   
   Participate in unit and integrated testing of the software to ensure that the design objectives are being met.
   
   Lead workgroups to facilitate data collection and design of clinical workflow, in conjunction with the clinicians.
   
   Participate as instructor in Epic training sessions, as needed, providing instruction to new hire and visiting clinicians.
   
   Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion
   
   Trinity Health is a family of 115,000 colleagues and nearly 26,000 physicians and clinicians across 25 states. Because we serve diverse populations, our colleagues are trained to recognize the cultural beliefs, values, traditions, language preferences, and health practices of the communities that we serve and to apply that knowledge to produce positive health outcomes. We also recognize that each of us has a different way of thinking and perceiving our world and that these differences often lead to innovative solutions.
   
   Our dedication to diversity includes a unified workforce (through training and education, recruitment, retention, and development), commitment and accountability, communication, community partnerships, and supplier diversity.

   Copy This Example

   

5. Post your job

   There are various strategies that you can use to find the right health informatics specialist for your business:

   • Consider promoting from within or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to find candidates who meet your education requirements.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to reach potential job candidates.

   To find health informatics specialist candidates, you can consider the following options:

   • Post your job opening on Zippia or other job search websites.
   • Use niche websites that focus on engineering and technology jobs, such as dice, engineering.com, stack overflow, it job pro.
   • Post your job on free job posting websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting health informatics specialists requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.

   While interviews are great, you will only sometimes learn enough from a conversation with a health informatics specialist applicant. In those cases, having candidates complete a test project can go a long way in figuring out who's the most likely to succeed in the role. If you aren't a technical person and don't know how to design an appropriate test, you can ask someone else on the team to create it or take a look at these websites to get a few ideas:

   • TestDome
   • CodeSignal
   • Testlify
   • BarRaiser
   • Coderbyte

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new health informatics specialist

   Once you've found the health informatics specialist candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's also good etiquette to follow up with applicants who don't get the job by sending them an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   To prepare for the new health informatics specialist first day, you should share an onboarding schedule with them that covers their first period on the job. You should also quickly complete any necessary paperwork, such as employee action forms and onboarding documents like I-9, benefits enrollment, and federal and state tax forms. Finally, Human Resources must ensure a new employee file is created for internal record keeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

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How much does it cost to hire a health informatics specialist?