The health care industry has boomed over the last few years,growing twice as fast as the national economy.

As the industry continues to grow, there will be a high demand for quality health care professionals.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics , the health care and social assistance industry is expected to generate the "largest number of jobs, 5.6 million, at an annual rate of 3.0 percent" between now and 2020 the most dramatic growth compared to any sector in the country.

And this growth won't be slowing down any time soon. A recent paper by Georgetown Universityreported that around 78 million baby boomers will be older than 65 by 2030, which means that the need for health care professionals is higher now than ever before.

As a huge proportion of the population gets older, there will be a high demand for better health care services, cutting-edge technology, and new drugs along with the doctors, nurses, lab researchers, technicians, and administrators who can propel the industry forward.

Robin Singleton,Executive Vice President and the national health care practice leader for DHR International, a recruiting firm responsible for placing executive s, explained how the health care industry is transforming, especially under President Obama's health care reforms.

"The days of the independent, not-for-profit community hospitals are shrinking because they don't have the resources for the technology, medical devices and the technology to capture all of this data they have to capture that will satisfy under the new health reform," Singleton said.

Instead, health care providers the hospitals, pharmaceutical, life science and biotechnology companies are consolidating together to create large self-sustaining systems.

There's also a greater emphasis on service and patient satisfaction within these new health care mega-systems.

That's partially because the Meaningful Use Act under Obama's reform says that these organizations are going to have to demonstrate "meaningful use" in order to get paid the maximum amounts allowable from the government(for Medicare and Medicaid patients) and the insurance companies. This means that providers can only fully get reimbursed if they have demonstrated through their outcomes data that the services they provide are appropriate and satisfactory to the patients.

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