How to Use Technology to Boost Your Healthcare Career Prospects

If you’re ready to secure a promotion, boost your annual salary, and enjoy a more rewarding working life, you must look for ways to climb the healthcare ladder.

Therefore, it is worth turning your attention towards technology, which could help you improve your education, develop new skills, and connect with people from your chosen industry.

Suppose you want to progress professionally and enjoy greater job satisfaction each day. In that case, you should find out how to use technology to boost your healthcare career prospects, which can range from improving your reputation to increasing your qualifications, such as gaining an online counseling degree.

Enroll in an Online Course to Improve Your Education

It might feel impossible to improve your education while juggling a full-time job and/or a busy family life. Yet, you could improve your education and career prospects by enrolling in the right online program. For example, if you have a passion for helping people and believe you have all the makings of an excellent counselor, you should earn an online counseling degree.

An online counseling degree, or another course, will provide greater studying flexibility, and you will have access to faculty support via email, photo, and videoconferencing throughout a program. Plus, if you join an online counseling degree course, you’ll be able to connect with likeminded peers and your professors via messaging apps, virtual meetings, and online discussion boards. It’s a modern way to grow your skillset and enhance your career prospects.

An online course can also make it easier for hardworking professionals to climb the corporate ladder at a time that best fits their needs and lifestyle. For example, a counselor or nurse can continue to earn many qualifications throughout their careers to become a senior healthcare leader and enjoy a bigger salary.

Use LinkedIn to Grow Your Prospects

LinkedIn is the perfect platform for connecting with many potential healthcare employers, colleagues, and hardworking professionals. Suppose you want to reach out to prospective employers, form strong relationships with people in your industry, and learn about the latest trends and tactics from experts in your field. In that case, you must develop a presence on the popular social network. You also could build a positive reputation in the sector, as you could impress a recruiter or medical professional with your insight, knowledge, and opinions.

If you don’t have a LinkedIn account or want to improve your presence, you should follow the below tips:

Feature your full name and a professional photograph of yourself – profiles with a photo will receive 21 times more views compared to those without a photo.
Use the headline area to describe who yourself, such as who you are and your areas of specialty.
Include only necessary information in the Experience section and highlight your successes and accomplishments, such as an online counseling degree, medical experience, and job history.
Create a custom LinkedIn URL to make it easier to share your profile with others.

You will also have an opportunity to curate content on the platform, so you’ll have a forum to share your ideas and insights with your peers. It’s for this reason why millions of healthcare professionals have developed a presence on the social network.

You can join LinkedIn groups to discuss specific topics with other professionals, which can help you to highlight your expertise and form strong connections with others.

Suppose you have a presence on many social media platforms. In that case, you should regularly review your profiles to ensure there are no posts, photographs, or information that could prevent an employer from offering you a role.

It is important to portray a professional, positive image on every profile, which could convince a healthcare organization to hire you over another attractive candidate. While you might believe a recruiter is too busy to check your Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter profiles, a whopping 90% of employers reportedly review an applicant’s social media activity before making a hiring decision.

Review your past social media activity to ensure you appear professional and friendly to a potential recruiter. If you don’t want to make changes to your profiles, you must ensure they are set to private.

Stay Updated on Tech Trends and Changes

Many healthcare organizations are turning to forward-thinking technologies to increase their standards, improve patient outcomes, and lower their overheads. If you want to grab an employer’s attention, and provide helpful opinions or insight into your field, stay updated on the latest tech trends and changes.

For example, suppose you’re a counselor who has earned an online counseling degree. In that case, you will understand the importance of video conferencing and emails with patients, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has taken a toll on many people’s mental health due to lockdowns, a loss of income, and grief.

Launch a Professional Website

If you want to showcase your expertise, promote your healthcare services, or share your opinions and insights with others, consider launching a professional website. It will provide a forum to share your healthcare qualifications, such as an online counseling degree, as well as your publications and industry experience.

It will also allow you to publish a regular blog to share your industry stories, insights, or ideas with others. As a result, you could develop a stronger reputation in the sector by establishing yourself as a thought leader.

However, running a professional website can take both time and hard work, as you must ensure your website is attractive, easy-to-use, loads quickly, and is free of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. You’ll also need to ensure your copy features powerful keywords to improve your site’s presence in the search engines. It must be mobile responsive to adapt to different visitors’ devices, such as smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop computers.

Read the Latest Medical Journals

It doesn’t matter if you’re training for an online counseling degree or have enjoyed many years’ experience as a nurse or doctor. You must look to keep abreast of the latest medical research studies, healthcare policies, and reviews. Doing so could increase your knowledge, skills, and standards, leading to better patient outcomes and experiences.

Some of the best medical journals to follow include:

New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)
Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA)
The Lancet
The British Medical Journal (BMJ)
Nature
Annals of Internal Medicine

Tune into Webinars

Healthcare professionals looking to improve their knowledge and skillset should join one or more webinars. The online presentations will allow medical professionals to stay updated on the latest innovations within their chosen field. It can be a handy source to learn more about research study results or to discover new medications or treatment methods.

Listen to Healthcare Podcasts

Many healthcare leaders have taken steps to launch their own podcasts, which provide a forum for them to express their opinions on clinical trials, vaccine development, enhancing public health, medical capacity, and much more. By listening to knowledgeable, experienced people from your field, you could develop a more informed opinion on a healthcare issue, device, or condition.

There are many fantastic healthcare podcasts you can listen to for free on the likes of Spotify and Apple Podcasts, such as:

Medtech Talk
The Heartwood Treehouse
Hidden Brain
Bright Spots in Healthcare Podcast
Digital Health Today
HealthCare Focus
Healthcare Rap

Connect with Your Peers

It is important to build strong relationships with other healthcare professionals, as they could directly influence your career. You could also learn from their knowledge and experience throughout the years, which could help you develop stronger skills and become a medical expert.

To form stronger friendships with your colleagues, you should aim to connect with them via social media, WhatsApp, or over Zoom calls. It will provide an opportunity to share insights, articles, and ideas, which could help you and your team to develop a better patient experience.

Carry Your Books with You

Carry every helpful healthcare textbook with you by adding an e-reader into your bag, such as a Kindle Fire. It will allow you to download thousands of books onto the device, which you can refer to at the click of a button. Therefore, it can support your studies or provide helpful guidance when looking for treatment or technique information.

For example, it will allow you to transport the following essential medical textbooks with you when at work or on-call:

Gray’s Atlas of Anatomy
Clinical Anatomy: Applied Anatomy for Students and Junior Doctors
Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy
Core Anatomy for Students Volumes 1, 2, and 3

It’s one gadget you’ll be glad you invested in when aiming to climb the healthcare ladder or completing a medical qualification, such as an online counseling degree.

Learn Another Language Online

If you want to stand out in the healthcare industry, you should learn a second language. Most employers are looking to hire bilingual employees, especially in healthcare, as they might need to communicate with patients who don’t speak English about their medical needs.

Another tongue could look great on your resume and might help you to secure your dream job at a hospital or another medical facility. To master another language, you could enroll in an online course. Alternatively, you could download a language learning app onto your smartphone, such as Duolingo or Babbel, which will allow you to learn on-the-go. Plus, learning another language could help you to secure work experience or another job in another country.

Improve Your Computer Skills

Regardless of the healthcare career you choose, it’s likely you’ll need to use a computer and various software programs each day. To improve your skillset and become a more attractive candidate for a role, you must aim to brush up on your computer skills.

For example, you could take an online course to master Microsoft Office, which includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. There are also many video tutorials and articles available to help you master the software like a pro. By doing so, you will be able to create, edit, and share documents with ease, which could improve your productivity levels and confidence in your role.

Organize Your Bookmarks

Many people fail to use bookmarks or to organize them efficiently. If you find an article you want to read later, you should add it to your bookmarks for future reference. You should also set time aside to manage your many bookmarks, which can help you find an important article with ease.

For example, you could create a folder for a specific subject and can store URLs related to the folder. For example, if you’re studying toward an online counseling degree, you could include folders related to therapy research, legal responsibilities, and study tips. You also could install an add-on, which will allow you to add tags onto your bookmarks to easily find an article, which can be an effective research tool.

Conclusion

Technology can play an important role in boosting a professional’s job prospects, which is why it shouldn’t be overlooked when attempting to secure bigger and better roles throughout your healthcare career.

For example, you could boost your education by enrolling in an online course, such as an online counseling degree. It will allow you to improve your skills and experience at a time and place that matches your needs, existing job, and lifestyle.

Also, as employers will often review an applicant’s social media profile before offering a candidate a position, you must take steps to remove unprofessional material and aim to showcase your knowledge and experience on the likes of LinkedIn and Twitter.

You also should use the internet to increase your industry knowledge and improve your research skills. For instance, you could learn another language, organize your bookmarks, join webinars related to your field, and stay updated on the latest healthcare trends and changes.

If you follow the above tips, you could grow your qualifications, boost your skills, and become a more attractive candidate for a healthcare position. It could help you to climb the career ladder, experience greater job satisfaction, and enjoy a larger annual salary.