Health and Human Services Expects New IT Leader by Fall

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) expects to elect a new national coordinator of health information technology by the close of the summer, David Brailer, the outgoing health IT coordinator, told Government Computer News (GCN).

Brailer stepped down from his position late last week but will hold the post until May 19 to help select his replacement, according to GCN. For related news coverage, read Top U.S. Health IT Leader Resigns.

HHS is also looking to fill a deputy coordinator position, GCN reports.

Brailer will be a vice chairman of the American Health Information Community, a public-private advisory group that makes recommendations on how new forms of health IT should be employed, according to GCN.

Brailer said that regardless of the positions in the department that need to be filled, HHS’ ongoing health IT initiatives won’t be left by the wayside, GCN reports.

“We’re ahead of our schedule. We’ve gotten much deeper buy-in than what we hoped for,” Brailer said, according to GCN.

The remaining challenges at HHS that raise the most concern with Brailer are cutting the size of the health IT adoption gap by decreasing the risks to physicians associated with the switch from paper to electronic records, and creating portable health records, GCN reports.

Check out our CIO News Alerts and Tech Informer pages for more updated news coverage.