Kaiser Permanente has begun hiring health information technology workers for a new IT campus in Greenwood Village, Colo., set to open next month. Approximately 500 IT staff will be hired in Colorado by 2015, bringing Kaiser Permanente's total IT presence in the state to about 700, officials said.

Kaiser Permanente employs approximately 6,000 IT professionals nationwide.

The Kaiser Permanente IT office will be located in a 120,000-square-foot, five-story building at Greenwood Plaza Boulevard in Greenwood Village.

"Kaiser Permanente's plan to open a new IT campus and create hundreds of jobs in Colorado is welcome news," said Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper. "USA Today recently recognized Denver and Boulder as top cities in the U.S. for technology start-up companies. Our state's high-tech workforce, healthy business eco-system and excellent quality-of-life continue to attract employers and new jobs. Kaiser Permanente's new IT campus is another win for Colorado."

[See also: Kaiser awards $1.5M for workforce development.]

"We are delighted to bring a new IT campus to Colorado that will serve as a center of excellence," said Donna Lynne, president of Kaiser Permanente Colorado. "Metro Denver's demographics, coupled with a healthy real estate market and an expansive talent pool of potential employees, make it the ideal location for Kaiser Permanente's IT campus. We're happy to be supporting Colorado's economy with a healthy dose of new jobs."

Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect, its electronic health record, is the largest non-governmental medical record system in the world. KP HealthConnect enables all of Kaiser Permanente's more than 16,000 physicians to electronically access the medical records of all nine million Kaiser Permanente members nationwide and serves as a model for other care systems.

More than four million members, 65 percent of Kaiser Permanente's eligible membership, use its personal health record, My Health Manager on kp.org, to engage their care teams and become actively involved in their healthcare. Through My Health Manager members have access to secure health information management features, including online appointment scheduling and prescription refills, lab test results, eligibility and benefits information and also children's immunization records. As of September, Kaiser Permanente members viewed more than 24 million test results and sent more than 10 million emails to their physicians through My Health Manager, according to Kaiser.

"Kaiser Permanente has provided high-quality, affordable healthcare to Coloradans for more than 40 years," said Phil Fasano, executive vice president and CIO of Kaiser Permanente. "Our commitment to the use of technology to coordinate patient care and improve health outcomes has solidified Kaiser Permanente's position as a best place to work in IT. This new IT campus will help meet increased demands for IT solutions and support as Kaiser Permanente expands in Colorado and other areas across the country."

[See also: Kaiser goes mobile with 9 million strong.]

Kaiser Permanente leads the nation in electronic health record implementation with 36 Stage 7 Awards from HIMSS Analytics. The awards honor hospitals that have achieved the highest level of electronic health record implementation.

With more than 6,000 staff in Colorado, Kaiser Permanente is one of the state's largest private employers. In 2011, Kaiser hired 140 employees to staff its state-of-the-art Member Service Call Center in the Lowry neighborhood. As Kaiser Permanente continues to add new membership in Colorado, it's estimated that hundreds of additional jobs could be created in the state in the next three to five years. Kaiser Permanente opened two new medical offices in Fort Collins and Loveland in October 2012 and has plans for future medical offices in Lone Tree in 2013 and Greeley in 2014.