A large part of that growth is driven by health care’s increasing reliance on IT — and the people who design and maintain IT systems. Electronic health records play a huge part in that — physician adoption of EHRs has roughly doubled in the past two years.

Along with installing and maintaining EHR systems, hospitals and practices adopting EHRs are creating a larger need for skilled people who can train medical professionals on those systems.

Researchers at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland found that rates of non-accidental head trauma (formerly called shaken baby syndrome) hospitalizations among infants have doubled since the onset of the recession.

The study’s authors believe that stressed out parents dealing with job loss, looming foreclosures and other potential economic worries may be more likely to reach the end of their rope — and take out their frustrations on the baby.

That idea is backed up by an earlier study at the University of Pittsburgh. Researchers there were reviewing non-accidental head injury among infants and young children from 2004 through 2009 — and found that cases of  head trauma per month doubled just around the time the recession began.

At the current rate, 2010 will be the worst year ever for the number of hospital layoffs.

According to the most recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 12,000 hospital workers were laid off in 2009 — and 2010 is on pace to beat that number. In July and August of this year, just over 2,000 workers were laid off in 26 separate mass layoffs. (BLS defines action as a mass layoff when 50 or more employees are involved.)

Through August, BLS reported 102 mass layoffs at hospitals, at the current pace, experts predict 153 layoffs before the year is over.

El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, California, just announced it will eliminate around 195 positions at the hospital to save money. The hospital is also leasing 19 robots to be used for tasks like delivering medications, lab samples, supplies and even patient meals within the hospital.

The cost of the robots is estimated to be about one-third of what it would cost to pay employees to do the same jobs. Besides not needing a salary, the robots don’t require time off or costly benefits.

A recent article by American Medical News anticipates an increase in new hires in 2010. Some of the indicators include an increase in job ads, continued demand and moderate growth of facilities despite the impact of the recession on the larger economic environment.

According to the Hay Group’s 2010 Healthcare Compensation report, the number of hospital CEOs who got a raise of 6% or more was down to 22% last year — the lowest level in the past 10 years.

But C-level execs aren’t headed for the hills — turnover rates were down last year.

Health care’s share of the economy increased 1.1% over 2008′s figures. That may not sound like much, but that’s the biggest increase since CMS started tracking the data in 1960.

Spending by governments (federal, state and local) was up 8.7% — compared to 3% growth for spending by employers, insurers and individuals.

2019 outlook

The report predicts that by 2019, health care spending will represent a whopping 19.3% of the country’s economy and will cost $2 trillion more than it did in 2009. Of that, 52% will be paid by the government.

The report did not take into account possible effects of current health care reform proposals.

That 4.4% is the slowest rate of growth since CMS started tracking it in 1960. The major cause: the recession. Many people have forgone or delayed health care treatment due to a lack of funds, and many of those laid off lost health insurance.

In addition, a reduced number of new prescription drugs slowed down prescription spending, which grew by “only” 3.2% in ’08.

Here’s a breakdown of spending trends by sector:

• Hospital spending grew by 4.5%, down from 5.7% in 2007.
• Physician and clinical service spending grew 5.0%, down from 5.8%.
• Nursing home and home health services spending great 4.6%, down from 5.8%.
• Public program spending (Medicare, Medicaid, etc.) grew 6.5% — same as in ’07.
• Private health insurance premiums grew 3.1%, down from 4.4%.
• Private spending (i.e., patient out-of-pocket expenses) was up just 2.6%, down from 5.6%.

CMS has the full report.

Despite the scary headlines about the rising number of Americans who are out of work, health care execs may have some difficulty filling certain positions in the next few years.

With more organizations implementing EHRs — and billions in federal economic stimulus floating around to help them do so — most experts expect tens of thousands of health care IT jobs to open up nationwide.

But no one is quite sure where those highly skilled workers are going to come from.

Hospitals are already running short-handed when it comes to IT. One out of four hospitals says it is understaffed in terms of employees and/or expertise, according to a recent survey by the American Hospital Association.

Dip into other industries’ talent pool

To fill those slots, most hospitals are going to face two potential challenges: A lack of bodies already in the health care sphere, and expectations of rising salaries as qualified people see the difference between supply and demand.

The good news is both challenges are relatively easily met.

The overall poor job market means that many IT pros may welcome the relative stability of health care. That should ease some of the recruiting pressure as the carrot of job security may offset some potential hires’ willingness to ask for higher salaries.

What will be more difficult is getting them up to speed on the various compliance issues, jargon and ethical issues that are unique to the medical field.

Organizations that end up hiring a significant number of folks without a health care background will want to spend some time making sure that they have some process in place, whether it’s a formal training session or an internal mentor, to help those new staffers absorb this new information.

While most corporate deal-making is at a standstill, health care M&A is at an all-time high, as measured by both the dollar value of the transactions and as a percentage of the number of total deals. That’s according to new research from Dealogic.

Two factors are adding fuel to the fire:

1. Banks continue to see health care as a safe place to extend credit, and
2. Expectations of more government spending, and the increasing move to EHRs, have buyers looking to make acquisitions.