Where Will the 'Mini-Army' of Health IT Workers Come From?

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act contains a set of provisions known as the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH Act, that advances the use of technology in health care. Among other things, the HITECH Act provides funding for the integration of health IT education in the training of health care professionals. Industry experts predict that not only must current health care providers be trained in health IT, but a whole new tier of health IT specialists will be needed to convert the country's health system to digital records. Many predict it will take a small army to achieve the goal of computerizing the nation's medical records within five years. Don Detmer, president of the American Medical Informatics Association, estimates it will take as many as 130,000 information technicians and 70,000 informatics specialists. Where will this "mini-army" of new workers come from? Does the stimulus package include enough money to train enough people? How long will this new learning curve take?