Top U.S. Health IT Leader Resigns

Dr. David Brailer, the United States’ national coordinator for health information technology, is resigning after two years holding the post, the Financial Times reports.

President Bush charged Brailer with creating a program that would provide portable electronic health records (EHRs) to half of all U.S. citizens within 10 years, according to the Financial Times.

Brailer said family issues motivated him to depart, and because the EHR initiative “is now mature and moving in the right direction,” he felt it was his time to leave, the Financial Times reports.

After spending a year readying the White House for the health initiative, Brailer took the national coordination post and organized a number of projects meant to bring together medical staff, health plan employees and IT vendors to improve the overall quality of medical care in the United States, as well as cut the associated costs, according to the Financial Times. Those projects include specifying the look of EHRs and addressing the sensitive privacy issues associated with such records, the Financial Times reports.

Brailer told the Financial Times there was “no drama” related to his resignation.  “Surely some people will use my leaving to attack the president or to say the program is not going well,” he said, according to the Financial Times.

The doctor had been commuting to Washington, D.C., from San Francisco, where his family lives, and leaving them on a weekly basis was “a huge personal agony” for him, he told the Financial Times.

He will hold a vice-chairman position of a key program advisory committee, and he will continue to work with the White House on consumer issues, according to the Financial Times.

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