The healthcare industry faces a perpetual staffing challenge, but the IT talent shortage creates a particular hurdle that amplifies other pain points for organizations like yours. The world continues to digitize at a rapid pace, leading to new realities that include constantly emerging security gaps and cybercriminals always looking to take advantage of them, as well as regulations being penned to offset the risks these cause for patients.
The good news is that an MSP (manage service provider) can help address this challenge by providing outsourced network support at scale, enabling you to better manage costs and gain peace of mind over your technology pain points. Continue reading below to discover how exactly managed services will empower you to address your IT talent shortage in healthcare:
Current State of the Healthcare Workforce
Hospital networks, medical facilities and more have been beset by a lack of qualified personnel for the many responsibilities within their organizations for years now. However, in 2025 this dilemma is only becoming more complicated by internal and external factors that continue to plague the industry.
IT Employee Shortage Compounded
Almost the entire healthcare industry is understaffed for multiple critical positions, but IT and cybersecurity professionals are particularly lacking. The problem is present across multiple industries, further compounding the difficulty medical organizations face when trying to find qualified personnel to support their networks and software ecosystems.
Technology Adoption and Risk
The world has continued to adopt digital transformation at an increasing pace, with the healthcare sector overall becoming much more reliant on electronic systems and interconnected networks to streamline operations and more effectively deliver an optimized service experience for patients. However, managing all of this technology requires oversight, which means devoting time and resources – which often falls on IT staff for lack of anyone else with the knowledge or capabilities to do so.
Rural vs Urban Healthcare Facilities
Talent shortages are typically felt much worse by healthcare facilities in more rural locations, where it is harder to attract qualified personnel in the numbers required. Conversely, many of these organizations are still falling behind their peers in more urban areas in implementing digital technology infrastructure, making it harder still to hire experienced network support professionals remotely as a stopgap.
Impacts of IT Talent Shortage in Healthcare
The true danger of the talent shortage in healthcare for your organization is that it decreases your ability to address the gaps that are inevitably forming in the background, and this is just as true for your IT and other technology needs as it is for your patient services. Here are some of the top risks to watch out for:
Cost of System Downtime in Healthcare
With all of the software systems and networked assets you rely on at any given time to keep operations going around the clock, it goes without saying that anything being shut down could become painful quickly – literally in some cases. Simply looking at some of the latest cyber incidents affecting healthcare organizations gives enough tangible and worrying examples of what can happen if the wrong system goes down. Many institutions have lost millions from forced downtime just through initial losses, with reputational damage caused by breaches leading to more devastating consequences down the line.
Cybersecurity Gaps
Modern cybersecurity is unfortunately not a “plug-and-play” practice anymore, with the rapid evolution of threats and persistence of bad actors necessitating constant vigilance and proactive identification of potential threats. However, this often falls on IT teams that are already incredibly overworked in the healthcare industry, with many personnel also lacking firsthand experience with or knowledge of the more insidious hacking methods that target the sector.
Compliance Oversight
You already know that you face multiple regulations requiring documentation and other compliance actions, but without IT staff that understand and can keep track of specific data security requirements, you can easily find yourself facing penalties for nonconformance gaps you did not even know you had. Worse, the same shortfalls that can put you at risk of penalization can also be exploited by hackers, compounding your difficulties exponentially.
How Managed Service Providers Fix the Healthcare IT Talent Shortage
How you engage with an MSP depends on what you need and the nature of your contract, ranging from augmenting your existing IT resources to becoming a completely outsourced department if you require it. The key benefit is that a provider will deliver these managed services at scale, giving you expert support on-demand as well as access to new solutions and additional advantages.
Manage IT Costs
From maintenance to salaries, having in-house IT department in your facility onsite can become costly in many ways and force you to make uncomfortable budgeting decisions. Working with an MSP, however, offers much more cost-effective alternatives to maintaining an expansive team of full-time staff, cutting your network support expenses by up to half in many cases. A managed service provider will also be able to onboard faster, as well as uncover new ways to optimize your costs at scale, improving your ROI on your IT investment.
Expert Talent On-demand
Tracking down and hiring IT personnel with specific qualifications or certifications is a major challenge in healthcare, but relying on an MSP gives you better access to specialists with expertise across different areas. Whether in regulatory requirements, cybersecurity practices, EHR (electronic health records) optimization or any other category, an outsourced provider lets you call on this expert support on-demand when you need it.
Consolidate Technology Investments
Many managed service partners often maintain their own licenses and expertise with different solutions, as well as relationships with vendors through working with them directly on different use cases. This allows you to save on your technology investments in various ways, including cutting down on training expenses and securing discounts on upfront purchases.
Scaling Existing IT Resources
Working with an MSP does not have to – and often should not – replace your existing IT team, and many providers will have service offers in place for augmenting your current resources and addressing gaps. This approach allows you to leverage co-managed IT services to scale your support coverage, whether you need to increase helpdesk hours, encrypt data in transit, keep better track of compliance efforts or anything else.
Risk Management
Modern cyber defense is defined by risk management, including as it applies to complying with data privacy regulations and cyber insurance liability stipulations. The right MSP partner will ensure that you maintain compliance with both as well as other obligations by helping you to audit the cyber risks throughout your organization’s networks and databases, and providing solutions for addressing gaps.
Let SWK Technologies Help You Make Your IT Work for You Again
SWK Technologies is an award-winning MSP that has worked with multiple healthcare associations and facilities to improve data security, streamline digital processes and solve persistent IT pain points. Get in touch with our today and discover how our managed services and solutions will help you keep your systems running smoothly, giving your peace of mind over your technology again.
Contact SWK here to learn more about how our managed IT services can support your healthcare organization’s technology requirements.