Amid an economy still recovering from a deep recession, students participating in the University of California San Diego Extension Health Information Technology Program are very lucky.

Thanks to the HITECH Act, they are not only part of the healthcare industry transformation but will reap a decent salary, gain invaluable career expertise and training, and actually see their work come to fruition in the real world. It doesn't get any better than that.
The project, which is to deploy an EHR and demonstrate meaningful use at a community clinic, is being supported by MedSphere, which offers an open-source EHR, OpenVista, based on the Dept. of Veterans Affairs' open-source solution, VistA. MedSphere is offering its solution to UC San Diego Extension Center at no charge, which is a pretty strategic move on the company's part.
It's a win-win initiative on so many levels. The open source community can access the Extension Center's implementation plan. The students gain hands-on experience. MedSphere gains eyeballs to its product. And the community clinic gets an EHR system and the resources to get it to meaningful use.
If this is the result of the programs - funding health IT in schools and driving adoption of meaningful use of EHRs - that HHS envisioned, it's a great story for the HITECH Act.