Vish Sankaran has announced his departure from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology's Federal Health Architecture program, where he has served as director. The Federal Health Architecture program works to promote the interoperable exchange of health data among federal agencies through a unified architecture.
According to an April 28 e-mail from Sankaran, he will leave the program sometime within the next few weeks. In the letter, he cited the FHA's achievements, including the creation of Connect, an open-source software platform linking government agencies as well as some organizations within the private sector.
Sankaran, whose age was unavailable at deadline, was appointed FHA director in March 2007.
“This was not an easy decision, but it comes at an ideal time for FHA and for me, when FHA is reshaping to fit in with the overarching federal health IT body being formed,” Sankaran said in the e-mail.
Sankaran gave little indication about his future plans in the e-mail, saying only that he would be seeking other opportunities.
