Who: Deven McGraw, 51
New role: Deputy director of the health information privacy division at HHS' Office for Civil Rights. It is the primary enforcement agency of privacy, security and data-breach notification regulations under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
Experience counts: McGraw comes from the law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, where she co-chaired the firm's privacy and data security practice. Previously, she headed the Health Privacy Project at the Washington not-for-profit Center for Democracy and Technology.
HHS adviser: McGraw has been an adviser to HHS on privacy since 2006 when she served as a member and later co-chair of the confidentiality, privacy and security workgroup of the American Health Information Community in the Bush administration. In 2009, she was named a founding member of the Obama administration's Health IT Policy Committee, which advises the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.
Kudos: Dr. Paul Tang, chief innovation and technology officer at the Palo Alto (Calif.) Medical Foundation and vice chair of the HITPC since its inception, said it's a “good investment” bringing McGraw onto the public payroll. “We provide advice, but the government still has to do the heavy lifting of weighing the advice, writing rules and implementing them,” he said.
