In Australia in 2010-11 Healthcare and Social Assistance accounted for 11.4% of employment, bypassing the retail, construction and manufacturing sectors. Around the world healthcare is a growth area for employment and it consumes progressively larger portions of GDP. The traditional hospital consisted of two types of staff – clinical staff or doctors and nurses, and support staff or administrators and cleaners, etc, etc. But staffing needs change over time. For example 30 years ago who would have said hospitals and healthcare systems would need departments of information technology and Chief Information Officers?

This post flags the start of a new series of blogs on new job (descriptions) for the hospitals and healthcare systems of the 21st century. Some of the jobs I’ll post about will include implementation scientists, behavioural economists, social media managers, big & small data analysts, molecular pathologists and diagnosticians, medical history curators, dignity therapists, disease forecasters, system navigators, and prevention strategists, to name a few.

If you think there is a new job that hospitals need then let me know through twitter @wsliauw