The grants will fund community and state-based initiatives that help advance health information sharing, enable community members to work together to improve population health, improve the interoperability of health IT systems and continue efforts to train and nurture the health IT workforce.

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So what is an anesthesiology critical care specialist with over 30 years of clinical practice at a highly regarded academic medical center doing as the ONC’s chief medical information officer?  The answer includes direction from Dr. Jack Wennberg, pioneer researcher in medical systems and founder of the health services research group that is now best known for the Dartmouth atlas, followed twenty years later by the same but much clearer advice and direction from former Surgeon General,

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Karen DeSalvo, M.D., M.P.H., M.Sc., the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, discusses her view of the health information technology landscape. She outlines an agenda for her office that includes incentivizing interoperability, “standardizing standards,” and establishing shared expectations and actions around data security and privacy. This post, which also appears on Health Affairs Blog, is based on Dr. DeSalvo’s presentation at the Health Information and Management Systems Society 2015 annual conference last week.

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I have now been a Federal Employee for a couple of months, the first time since I mustered out of the Army in 1983.  Having spent all of my professional life in areas other than the federal government, I had previously viewed government’s work with suspicion and skepticism.

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