HHS on March 20th announced that David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P is the Obama Administration’s choice for National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. As the National Coordinator, Dr. Blumenthal will lead the implementation of a nationwide interoperable privacy-protected health information technology infrastructure as called for in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
Dr. Blumenthal most recently served as a physician and Director of the Institute for Health Policy at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners HealthCare System in Boston. He was Professor of Medicine and Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. There, he served as Director of the Harvard University Interfaculty Program for Health Systems Improvement.
Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital and served as Executive Director of the Center for Health Policy and Management and as a lecturer on Public Policy at the John D. Kennedy School of Government.
During the late 1970s, Dr. Blumenthal worked on Senator Edward Kennedy’s Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research. More recently, Dr. Blumenthal advised the Obama for America campaign.
Dr. Blumenthal has extensively researched the dissemination of health information technology, quality management in healthcare, the determinants of physician behavior, access to health services, and the extent and consequences of academic industrial relationships in the health sciences.
“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. 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,” said Dr. Blumenthal.
