The industry of health IT has become one of the fastest growing industries in the country in terms of new jobs. In November, the number of open healthcare and related jobs in the industry grew to 17,000. The numbers added in November result in an average of 27,000 new jobs in the industry being added each month according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“The statistics over the past few months have been more than encouraging,” says Del Johnston, manager of client relations at MedZilla.com, according to Healthcare IT News. “They are a real light at the end of the tunnel. Various industries are beginning to regroup – making adjustments to fit an evolving market. That’s not inconsistent with what we know to happen historically after major structural shifts in the economy. Health IT is a perfect example of this. Here you have two, previously separate industries that are rapidly growing into one another. Where the two meet you have an opportunity to explore a completely new labor pool.”

Since the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act (HITECH Act) went into effect, close to 50,000 IT-related jobs in the healthcare industry have been created. Between the years of 2008 and 2018, the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the number of IT jobs to increase by a whopping 20 percent. This number will exceed the average for all occupations through the year 2018.

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary for the United States Department of Health and Human Services, said that at the end of November the physicians’ adoption of health information technology has doubled over the past two years.

“When doctors and hospitals use health information technology, patients get better care and we can all save money,” said Nancy-Ann DeParle, Deputy White House Chief of Staff. “This results in less paperwork for billing, medical records and prescribing; easier coordination of care among doctors, nurses and pharmacists in hospitals and outpatient settings; and better reporting on quality of care.”

Guillermo Moreno, the vice president of the recruiting company of Experis Healthcare, claims that skills and experience in EMR and EHR implementation, applications, information security, data management and business intelligence will be the hot topics in 2012, according to Healthcare IT News.

“There are a lot of qualified people out there, and the gap they have is that most CIOs in hospitals are looking for clinical backgrounds that understand what medical jargon is,” says Eric Marx, vice president of Health Care IT for Modis, which is an IT staffing subsidiary of the Adecco Group. “There’s a premium on security folks and on folks that can take large amounts of information and get some value out of it, so business intelligence and data warehousing are significant. Hourly rates and salaries are going through the roof, and most candidates have multiple offers at the time that hospitals are trying to land them.”