How to Succeed as a Remote Healthcare IT Consultant

Remote work is now commonplace in many industries including healthcare. In fact, data from Owl Labs indicates that the healthcare industry has the highest number of remote workers (15%). As healthcare organizations continue to adopt remote and hybrid working models, healthcare IT consultants will need to develop strategies for successfully navigating work.

The flexibility of remote working is appealing to many consultants, but that flexibility comes with requirements to adapt to new ways of working. The key to success as a remote consultant today requires:

Consistent communication

Communicating regularly and clearly with clients is vital to building trust and making remote consulting seamless. Good communication in remote consulting starts by determining client communication preferences and using those channels to be transparent about progress, provide frequent updates and relay timely information on key milestones. To improve communication and become more embedded in project teams, consultants should ask to join the client’s internal communication channel. This facilitates real-time conversations, improves responsiveness and enhances client relations.

Use of tools and apps

Most IT consultants are probably way ahead of the curve when it comes to using tools and apps to remain productive and organized. However, it is worth noting a few tools and apps that can help make remote work easier. To minimize distractions and allow for better hearing during meetings, noise cancelling headphones should be part of the remote consultant’s toolkit. To stay on top of projects, apps such as Azure Boards and Basecamp are helpful tools for planning, organizing and tracking projects.

Reliability

Reliably delivering high quality work on time is key to IT consultant success whether the work is remote or on-site. To achieve this, consultants working remotely must be disciplined and operate in the same way they would if they were working in an office. That means avoiding getting sidetracked by non-work tasks like reading the latest news or doing laundry.

In the remote work absence of in-person interaction, reliability becomes an even more critical factor for elevating client trust.

Commitment to upskilling

The best consultants are always learning and are willing to allocate time for training and development. With no HR department organizing training opportunities, remote IT consultants must take responsibility for their own professional development. Certifications, training courses and memberships provide excellent opportunities for consultants to strengthen experience and skill sets. Remote consultants can also increase their knowledge by staying up-to-date on industry trends and standards, reading industry magazines and blogs and going to meetups.

Finding the best-fit opportunities

Finding the best-fit opportunities is critical to remote consultant success. When opportunities are a perfect fit, engagement and job satisfaction increase – two factors that impact performance and well-being. While finding right-fit job opportunities can be very time consuming, resource intensive, and inefficient, this process doesn’t have to be.

Abra, a one stop platform that enables healthcare IT talent to share their skills, expertise, and availability with all healthcare employers in the market, eliminates the pain points of finding best-fit engagements. The platform brings demand to a single access point, empowering healthcare IT consultants with more choices and reducing the time and effort it takes to find opportunities aligned with their needs and preferences.

Achieving success as a remote healthcare IT consultant starts with the right engagements – finding the right engagements starts with Abra. Get started today!

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