Yes, the economy seems to be slowly picking itself up and dusting itself off, but that doesn’t mean that companies are hiring and wages are rising again in most industries, save one: healthcare.

That’s because not only is healthcare getting the once over by government, it’s also finally making the complicated move toward electronic health records.

And all that means a boost in jobs for IT workers. Anyone who develops or manages technologies that support this industry will likely be employed in the coming years.

Insurance companies are among the largest consumers of technology talent, and that industry can expect big changes once the debate in Congress is finished. If nothing else, the industry will be changing the way it does things. That will mean overhauling or at least adapting computer software to fit the new insurance legal and accounting rules.

The push to make health records electronic will also demand huge IT resources and talent. A serious initiative pushed by the Obama administration has recently begun that would take already existing standards for such records and create regional data exchanges services, much as the banking industry has for sharing information and making transactions.

Figuring out how to make the wide variety of healthcare software out there work in concert will take years and a lot of IT work.

Tags: electronic records, healthcare, industry, IT jobs