DeSalvo will juggle ONC chief, HHS posts

The nation's chief health information technology officer will continue to serve in that role while also helping lead HHS' public health efforts, including its response to the Ebola virus outbreak, according to an official government blog.

HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell last month appointed Dr. Karen DeSalvo, who is head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, to serve as acting assistant secretary of health, effective immediately. Lisa Lewis, a lawyer who was ONC's chief operating officer, was named acting ONC coordinator.

But according to HealthITBuzz, the ONC's official blog, DeSalvo will serve as acting assistant secretary “while maintaining her leadership of ONC.” The blog said DeSalvo “will continue to work on high-level policy issues at ONC, and ONC will follow the policy direction that she has set.”

DeSalvo will continue as chair of the Health IT Policy Committee, continue leading the development of the interoperability road map and remain involved in meaningful-use policymaking.

She also will continue to co-chair HHS' cross-departmental work on delivery-system reform. The blog said Lewis “will provide day-to-day leadership at ONC.”

“I think we've said from the beginning that her intention all along was to keep a hand in certain affairs at ONC,” spokesman Peter Ashkenaz said. “The blog post says that as well.”

The announcement that DeSalvo was taking the new HHS job after only 10 months at the ONC—the shortest tenure in the history of the agency—surprised the health IT community.

Some experts said her departure came at an inopportune time as several other ONC leaders are heading for the exit. There is widespread angst over the timing of the Stage 2 meaningful-use criteria, the looming shift to the ICD-10 diagnostic and procedure codes, and the interoperability road map that's still a work in progress. ONC Deputy National Coordinator Dr. Jacob Reider recently announced he would leave the agency in November.

“I suspect, with all the hue and cry that came up out of it, they backpedaled and said they didn't really mean it that way, (and that DeSalvo) really is the coordinator,” said Dr. Joseph Schneider, chief medical information officer at Baylor Scott & White Health, Dallas. “There was a crisis of confidence.”

Still, Schneider expressed concern about DeSalvo trying to handle two demanding jobs at the same time. “If you give people too many things to do, they don't get it done terribly well,” he said.