Dr. David Blumenthal, the former head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, will serve as the next president of the Commonwealth Fund, the New York-based not-for-profit organization announced.
Blumenthal will replace Karen Davis on Jan. 1, 2013, according to a Commonwealth Fund news release. Blumenthal also was named to the board of directors. He currently serves as chairman of the organization's Commission on a High Performance Health System.
The Commonwealth Fund's mission is to "promote a high-performing healthcare system that achieves better access, improved quality and greater efficiency, particularly for society's most vulnerable," according to the organization's website. Davis announced in November that she would step down at the end of 2012.
Blumenthal was the third physician chief at the ONC; he was named to that post by President Barack Obama in March 2009 and took over from Dr. Robert Kolodner in May. He stepped down in the spring of 2011 to return to Harvard University, where he currently serves as a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and as chief health information and innovation officer at Partners HealthCare Systemm, Boston. Dr. Farzad Mostashari succeeded Blumenthal as head of the ONC. Blumenthal has been named by Modern Healthcare readers five times to the magazine's list of the 50 Most Influential Physician Executives and topped the list in 2010.