Kaiser plans to hire 500 for new IT center in Colorado

Computerworld - Health care provider Kaiser Permanente has begun hiring about 500 IT professionals to staff its new information technology campus in Englewood, Colo.

Kaiser, which says it employs about 6,000 IT workers nationwide, said the Englewood hiring process will continue through 2015. A spokeswoman added that the plan includes "the potential to add more in subsequent years."

Once the Englewood hiring goal is met, Kaiser will employ about 700 IT professionals in Colorado. The health care provider said the hires will include workers to fill new positions, and to make up for attrition.

In general, the increasing use of electronic medical records and automation in the health care industry has been driving IT hiring. A recent College of Healthcare Information Management Executives survey of hospitals found strong demandfor IT professionals in the industry.

Kaiser is seeking to fill a broad range of positions at the new Colorado facility for a range of entry level to experienced programmers, systems support professionals and project managers.

The new 120,000 square-foot IT complex located near Denver is due to open next month.

In 2009, Kaiser had announced IT cuts of 860 employees. Some of those employees were transferred to IBM as part of a data center outsourcing agreement. The company reportedly employed about 6,200 IT professionals at the time.

Patrick Thibodeau covers SaaS and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @DCgov, or subscribe to Patrick's RSS feed . His e-mail address is pthibodeau@computerworld.com.

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