Health IT effort to create thousands of new jobs, says Blumenthal

At least 50,000 new health information management jobs will be needed as the nation moves from a paper to a digital healthcare system, the nation's healthcare IT chief said Tuesday. David Blumenthal, MD, national coordinator for health information technology, spoke about the government's plans for transforming healthcare into an industry of "meaningful users" of healthcare IT at the 81st annual American Health Information Management Association convention. "I know it's not going to be easy," he said. "We're going to need your help to bring this vision to reality."