Blumenthal: Health IT effort to create thousands of new jobs
Bernie Monegain, Editor of Healthcare IT News, reported on October 6, 2009, from the 81st Annual American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), on National Coordinator David Blumenthal’s vision of of the need for 50,000 new health information management jobs as the nation moves to electronic health records and information exchange.

Monegain further reported “A workforce training initiative would be announced within weeks or months, he (Blumenthal) said, but offered no details.”

e-Healthcare Marketing reported October 4, 2009, on the ONC’s posting of an annotated agenda and description of six new roles and a possible range of necessary competencies for each role, based on an August Workforce Workshop at Vanderbilt.

HealthData Management’s Howard Anderson reported  October 7, 2009, on AHIMA CEO Linda Kloss’s reaction to Blumenthal’s speech, when she said ONC should not rush to start programs without adequate oversight since 270 health information management academic programs already exist to train professionals. 

Kloss teaches (AHIMA) group’s long history to Blumenthal
Modern Healthcare’s HITS staffer Joseph Conn reported October 7, 2009 on AHIMA President Linda Kloss’s speech addressed primarily to Blumenthal and his ONC staff, based on Kloss’s 30-year history in Health IT. Kloss has been president of AHIMA for 15 years and is stepping down in March 2010. The recap of her speech is worth the history lesson to help put HIT in perspective.