As a current developer for a health IT company, much of this is true. Even with the current incentives to go electronic, many doctors just simply prefer paper charts and are willing to forgo the $40k a year just to keep things the status quo. My particular company is growing by leaps and bounds because we started with a very simple Practice Management model and grew out from there whereas I see a lot of startups try to jump directly into EMR's which can be a tough market to crack.
But for anyone looking to get into Health IT, I highly recommend it. Healthcare is a multi-billion dollar industry that is in dire need of some disruption and the programming challenges are both interesting and rewarding (shameless plug: we're hiring).
You should also consider the pre-hospital field - a paramedic/EMT in the field with a Toughbook, etc (where they're not still with paper) is typically using horrible software, with little flexibility to what by nature can be a rapidly changing encounter. I see this every day, and hear the cursing that accompanies it, and think to myself that there is so much that could be done to improve this.
That's a really great idea and honestly, our biggest problem now isn't a lack of work but rather a lack of programmers. The entire health care industry from the EMT's up to the hospitals really needs an overhaul as some of the software used is decades old.
What I've observed is that it's hard to get the decision makers listen to you and often, they're unwilling to invest any more than they've already done towards any solution. Granted these conversations were mainly concerned with a SaaS based solution targeted towards HR & Administrative Operations vs. the field techs.
But for anyone looking to get into Health IT, I highly recommend it. Healthcare is a multi-billion dollar industry that is in dire need of some disruption and the programming challenges are both interesting and rewarding (shameless plug: we're hiring).