The next wave of workers hired by the nation's health care industry may never see a patient.
Instead, they'll need to know what Kelly Dale teaches at St. Paul College -- the complex medical coding system used by hospitals and clinics to get paid.
Her students are on the front line of an effort by the nation's colleges and universities to train more workers for the medical system's continued march into the digital age.
But educators say training programs are not keeping up with the demand for information technology workers with expertise in medical data.
"There's a major skills gap right now," said Ryan Sandefer of the College of St. Scholastica, a private school that offers the state's only four-year and master's degree programs in the fast-growing field. "There's just tons and tons of data. The problem is, there's not a whole lot of people with the technical expertise in how to build the systems correctly or how to use the data accurately."
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says 12,000 to 50,000 health IT workers will be needed in five years. Many jobs will involve helping hospitals and clinics handle coding and billing, and setting up patient's electronic health records.
There's also growing demand for highly trained workers who can analyze and manage data, train clinicians and others in the technology and protect it against privacy breaches.
Providers and insurers recognize the untapped potential to use data to lower costs, improve patient care and prevent illness -- key principles of the federal health care law that will be important no matter how the Supreme Court rules.