New ONC head Mostashari outlines his priorities

The new head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology pledged to continue to run an open and transparent office, but Dr. Farzad Mostashari said he would "double down" on efforts to improve communications, be more consumer-centric and to tailor the office's efforts to improve care coordination to align with objectives in the National Strategy for Quality Improvement in Healthcare and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Mostashari outlined his goals and expectations Wednesday morning at a meeting of the federally chartered Health IT Policy Committee, for which he serves as chairman.

Mostashari took over last week as the head of ONC from Dr. David Blumenthal, who stepped down after a two-year term to return to academia.

Mostashari said policies of openness and transparency have been vital in advancing the country's health IT objectives. A willingness to listen to assorted health IT stakeholders, too, has played a key role, he said. "One thing they said about David is, that guy really knows how to listen, and I'll try to continue that and that very inclusive process," Mostashari said.

The ONC also will continue "to work with the market and tap into the energy of the private sector while we continue to make a more perfect market," Mostashari said. "And while we do that we have to continue to look out for the little guy."

There are three other areas that will require increased focus, Mostashari said. The first, he said, involves "boots on the ground."

"We're moving into an intense implementation and execution phase," Mostashari said, adding that he knows how difficult the work is from personal experience implementing electronic health-record systems in New York, where he served as a public health official.

"The second area of emphasis and redoubling, and we see this in the strategic plan, (is) the concept of putting the patient at the center of everything we do,” he said. Those efforts will be manifested in attention to privacy and security, according to Mostashari. "I think we owe that to the American people and also in terms of making progress on ways we can technologically have opportunities for greater patient protection." That could include, he said, "more granular protection through metadata" as outlined in a December report from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Finally, there will be an increased focus on outcomes, Mostashari said. "Everything we've done in meaningful use has not been about the technology" but about improving quality of care, he said. "Quite consciously, we need to be aligning and coordinating our work in the service of the broader national health goals."