The health IT community enthusiastically praised the Obama administration's choice of New Orleans Health Commissioner Dr. Karen DeSalvo as the new national coordinator for health information technology.
Health IT community praises DeSalvo as choice to lead ONC
DeSalvo, who is known for innovative uses of IT in the city's public health efforts, starts Jan. 13 and succeeds Dr. Jacob Reider, who has been serving as acting national coordinator since Dr. Farzad Mostashari stepped down in October.
She enters the job at a crucial time. The ONC is working to balance an aggressive push to get hospitals and clinicians to adopt and meaningfully use electronic health records against intense pressure from providers for more time and flexibility to meet those requirements, part of the EHR incentive-payment program created under the 2009 stimulus law. On Dec. 6, the ONC and the CMS announced a one-year extension of Stage 2 of the program (See "Taking the EHR penalty: More doc offices may opt out").
“She has deep experience with community health and likely will focus on safety, quality and efficiency policy goals empowered by healthcare IT,” said Dr. John Halamka, chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Reider will return to his previous role as ONC's chief medical officer when DeSalvo arrives. Next year, he said in a memo to staff, “will be an incredible next chapter in ONC's history and one that we should all be looking forward to.”
Follow Andis Robeznieks on Twitter: @MHARobeznieks
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