Perryn Ashmore, principal deputy chief information officer at HHS, on Friday began serving as the department's acting CIO.
Jose Arrieta, who had served as HHS' CIO for 16 months, formally resigned from his role Friday.
Arrieta on Aug. 14 had announced plans to resign, saying that he wanted to spend more time with his children. Arrieta at the time had reportedly told HHS Secretary Alex Azar he planned to continue to serve as CIO temporarily to ensure a smooth leadership transition.
Arrieta had spent more than 15 years working in the federal government.
HHS Deputy Secretary Eric Hargan in a statement Friday said HHS Protect—the department's controversial COVID-19 database—"will be a lasting, invaluable legacy of Jose's time at HHS."
"We are immensely grateful for the work that Jose Arrieta did during his time at HHS, leaving a legacy of transformative advances in our department's data work, better business practices that will save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, and stronger protections for our department's networks from cyberattacks," Hargan said. "HHS' leaders look forward to continuing close work with Perryn Ashmore as acting CIO on these important issues."
HHS in mid-July announced that it, rather than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would begin collecting daily COVID-19 information from hospitals through the new HHS Protect database. The decision sparked concerns about the integrity of COVID-19 data reporting, as well as several congressional investigations.
Arrieta in July said that the move would reduce hospitals' reporting burden. It made sense to centralize data collection because it was taxing for hospitals to report similar information to several government agencies.
"We're actually meeting hospitals technologically where they are from a reporting perspective," he said in July.
HHS has seen turnover among key information technology staff this year. Former HHS Chief Data Officer Dr. Mona Siddiqui left the department in January to join insurer Humana. Last month, former HHS Chief Product Officer Todd Simpson went to work for the Veterans Affairs Department.
