How To Become A Healthcare Educator: What It Is and Career Path

What is a healthcare educator and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

Quoted expert

Chris Halter

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a healthcare educator. For example, did you know that they make an average of $24.2 an hour? That's $50,333 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 12% and produce 15,200 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a healthcare educator?

Chris Halter

Senior Teaching Professor, University of California - San Diego

Like any field, education is changing and adapting to the needs of today. Anyone in education must have strong digital literacy and be able to fluidly integrate the use of technology into their work. Along with that we need data literacy. The ability to understand data and to make decisions based on the data will help guide our decisions. Cultural literacy and competency is also crucial in any social, community-based field. To truly serve others, we must understand the strengths that come from each community.

ScoreHealthcare EducatorUS Average

Salary

3.9

Avg. Salary $50,333

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.7

Growth rate 12%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

10.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 1.24%

Asian 6.06%

Black or African American 9.58%

Hispanic or Latino 22.95%

Unknown 6.40%

White 53.77%

Gender

female 78.67%

male 21.33%

Age - 42

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 42

Stress level

7.7

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.6

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

9.1

Work life balance is excellent

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a healthcare educator

Explore healthcare educator education requirements

Most common healthcare educator degrees

Bachelor's

52.5 %

Master's

19.7 %

Associate

13.1 %

Start to develop specific healthcare educator skills

Skills	Percentages
HIV	47.88%
Health Education	33.82%
CPR	7.58%
Patient Care	6.90%
Open Communication	3.82%

Complete relevant healthcare educator training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New healthcare educators learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a healthcare educator based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real healthcare educator resumes.

Research healthcare educator duties and responsibilities

Manage revolving caseload of students with IEP team including initials, transfer placements, manifestation determinations.
Utilize electronic population management tools to identify patients within a provider panel who meet agree upon risk criteria for follow-up.
Coordinate social media campaign for teens to spread awareness about relationship abuse and integrate into healthy relationship curriculum.

Apply for healthcare educator jobs

Now it's time to start searching for a healthcare educator job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:

Browse job boards for relevant postings
Consult your professional network
Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
Watch out for job scams

How do healthcare educators rate their job?

-/5

5 stars

4 stars

3 stars

2 stars

1 star

Healthcare educator reviews

A zippia user wrote a review on Oct 2019

Cons

Other people being negative to diabetics