From August to October 2022, we conducted a content analysis of health informatics job postings in India using three job portals: Glassdoor, Indeed, and Monster. We used instant data scrapper, a Google chrome web tool to get job information from online portals.

Data were gathered from online job portals, focusing on health informatics-related postings. The extracted variables included job title, categories, organization, degree, experience, salary, and location. The initial dataset contained 926 job postings. Exclusion criteria were applied in the third step, eliminating jobs that lacked complete descriptions, were duplicates, misaligned with health informatics, or required irrelevant skills. This whittled down the dataset to 44 relevant job postings.

Further steps involved reclassifying job titles into nine broader categories, simplifying analysis. Out of the initial 926 postings, 504 were excluded due to incomplete information, and 422 duplicates were removed. Technical skills were extracted, resulting in 21 distinct skills. These skills were matched with the remaining postings based on titles, location, and salary to identify common skill requirements. This process culminated in a final dataset of 44 job postings that adhered to criteria. The systematic procedure encompassed data collection, exclusion of irrelevant postings, job title reclassification, skills extraction, and skills-to-postings mapping, ultimately yielding a concise representation of 44 health informatics roles meeting defined criteria. Refer to Figure 1.

We consulted Career360.com as a resource and looked for educational institutions offering health management courses in India. Our search results showed that there were 77 institutions offering health management courses, of which only 18 met the requirements. The selection criteria for the educational institutions based on our inclusion and exclusion criteria are shown in Figure 1.

An online discussion was arranged to list the skills associated with the various modules. Based on the discussion with industry experts, a list of skills appending with each module was prepared. The ratio of the skills taught at the colleges to the skills required by the hiring companies is determined, and using the 80-20 rule, the correlation between the two variables is compared (Pareto principle). With the same methodology, we also evaluated the accessibility of job opportunities at universities offering healthcare management courses and locations.

We categorized the job postings based on the job categories, hiring organization types, job types, qualifications and experience needed, and the range of salaries offered after analyzing the selected jobs. Based on the percentage of job postings that requested a role out of the total number of selected job postings (N = 44), the jobs that were produced were divided into nine categories (Table 1). The analyst position was the most in-demand position, followed by associate manager and manager. Approximately two-fifths of the recruiting organization, according to our analysis, were IT service management firms. For the selected job postings, all but a few companies offered full-time employment and no part-time positions. The majority of job postings required a bachelor’s degree and at least 1 year of experience in the field of health IT management. Figure 2 presents the city wise frequency of jobs.

The skills required were segregated into 21 types. The skills were then matched with the jobs on the basis of job description provided. Figure 3 presents the visualization of skills, data manipulation skills and data modeling skills were essential in 26 out of 44 job postings, followed by data visualization required in 24 out of 44 job postings. Microsoft Office was required in 16 out of 44 job postings, problem solving skills were required in 14 out of 44 job postings, communication and project management skills were each required in 11 out of 44 job postings, Python was required in 10 out of 44 job postings, and Tableau and SQL were each required in 9 out of 44 job postings.

The skills required were then classified on the basis of experience required as per the job description as presented in Table 2. The experience required was divided into 1–2 years, 3–4 years, 5–7 years, and 8–10 years.

The required skills were then segregated into various job positions. Figure 4 the job positions that were divided as analyst, expert, associate, consultant, data scientist, research analyst, knowledge management associate, manager, and quality control associate and mapped against the skillsets.

The salary bracket provided by the companies was converted into US dollars from Indian rupee. The salaries were then segregated based on the skills required and presented in Figure 5.

Data analysis skills, Python, SQL, Tableau, decision-making skills, product development skills, and knowledge of EMR/HER were listed as desirable skills for a salary bracket of >16,000 USD.

We created a unified framework of modules based on our analysis of the core competencies demanded by the hiring firms after examining the modules of each college offering health informatics courses. Table 3 presents the classification of skills and corresponding modules. Core management skills such as human resource management in healthcare, financial management for healthcare, marketing management, healthcare operations management, supply chain management in healthcare, and strategic management in healthcare were found to be the most often offered modules. Technical skill modules made up only 3% of the program. The remaining modules concentrated on developing organizational skills.

The modules were grouped according to the competencies listed in the job postings, and the number of institutions offering these fundamental skill sets was compared and presented in Figure 6. IT in Health Management was offered by 79% of the colleges, Analytics for Healthcare was offered by 68% of the colleges, and Hospital Information System was offered by 63% of the colleges.

A density plot is presented in Figure 7 to explain the density of colleges across the Indian States. Maharashtra and Delhi had the largest concentration of colleges offering health informatics programs, with Karnataka closely following them.

Microsoft Office was a must for every position, and it ranked above other skills including data analysis (67%), general management (61%), and communication (56%). Figure 9 presents further details on skills required by hiring firms.