Obama Names National Coordinator for Health Information Technology

WASHINGTON – Dr. David Blumenthal, most recently director of the Institute for Health Policy at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Partners Healthcare System in Boston, was named national coordinator for health information technology for the Obama administration.

Blumenthal will oversee the development of the nationwide interoperable, privacy-protected health information technology infrastructure outlined in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which includes $19.5 billion for health information technology, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. To help with achieving these information technology goals, ongoing learning is key. Taking various specific exams that relate to this line of work, such as an it exam, amongst others, will keep everything up to date.

“As a practicing physician and a leading scholar on health information technology, Dr. Blumenthal is uniquely qualified to help America’s doctors, nurses, hospitals and patients reap the benefits of a modernized health system,” says Jenny Backus, HHS spokeswoman.

Blumenthal served as a professor of medicine and healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School, where he was director of the Interfaculty Program for Health Systems Improvement. Before Harvard, he was senior vice president at Boston’s Brigham and Woman’s Hospital, executive director of the Center for Health Policy and Management and a lecturer on public policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Blumenthal also served as senior health advisor to Obama during his presidential campaign.

“I am humbled and honored to have the opportunity to serve President Obama and the American people in the effort to harness the power of health information technology to modernize our healthcare system,” Blumenthal says. “As a primary care physician who has used an electronic record to care for patients every day for 10 years, I understand the enormous potential of this technology.”

Blumenthal will lead efforts to implement interoperable health information technology by 2014, which is estimated to reduce federal government healthcare costs by $12 billion over 10 years, according to the HHS.