University of California, San Diego, Extension: Healthcare IT Program
The University of California, San Diego Extension Health Information Technology Program prepares students, many embarking on second or third careers, for jobs in the growing field of health IT.
Even in the current economic climate, the national demand for HIT professionals is increasing as hospitals, clinics and physician offices race to implement electronic health record systems in time to qualify for federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds around health IT adoption. Fulfilling and financially rewarding opportunities are increasing at health IT companies like Medsphere, as well as at hospitals, community clinics, and systems integration and consulting firms.
Medsphere has made its OpenVista EHR solution available to UCSD Extension HIT Program at no charge so students can apply their training by working with a currently live health IT system. Key Medsphere executives share their knowledge of the industry as guest lecturers and the company hosts student groups at its Carlsbad headquarters.
Most recently, Medsphere personnel have introduced UCSD Extension students into Medsphere's collaborative community, the Healthcare Open Source Ecosystem, so they could share their detailed plan for implementing an electronic health record system in a sample community clinic system. Click on Medsphere-UCSD Partnership to access a news release announcing successful completion of this project. Click on UCSD OpenVista Ecosystem Project to access the actual clinic EHR implementation plan.
The San Diego Workforce Partnership helped develop UCSD's Extension Health IT Program and provided tuition for 100 students using ARRA funds. Click on "UCSD, Other Schools Offering Health IT Education Programs" to access an iHealthBeat article that describes the UCSD and other comparable programs.
Click on UCSD Extension to learn more.