WASHINGTON – Veterans Admin-istration executive Robert M. Kolodner, MD, is stepping up as the nation’s interim healthcare IT chief.

Industry leaders are hailing the appointment of Kolodner, and expect the now-former chief health informatics officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs to pick up where David J. Brailer, MD, ended when he resigned the post of National Coordinator of Health Information Technology last May after two years on the job.

Many cited Kolodner’s experience in overseeing the development of the VA’s VistA program and its healthcare information system as solid credentials for his new role.

“Dr. Brailer supplied a vision to launch the HHS health strategy from scratch. Now Dr. Kolodner brings his experience with converting vision to reality,” said Mark Leavitt, MD, chairman of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology.
“CCHIT is really looking forward to continuing our excellent working relationship with ONCHIT under Dr. Kolodner’s leadership,” he said.

Janet Marchibroda, CEO of eHealth Initiatives, applauded Kolodner’s appointment, saying, “He has long been a trailblazer in EHRs and interoperability.” She said his background as a clinician with a patient-centered focus, his expertise in informatics and his “deep understanding of running a complex program at the VA” make him well suited for his new role.

David Roberts, vice president of government relations for the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, also noted that Kolodner’s nonpolitical stance will serve him well.

While William Yasnoff, MD, PhD, and managing partner of NHII Advisors agreed that Kolodner is a “good choice” as interim coordinator, he stressed that ONCHIT’s challenge will be to “develop a specific vision of how a completed nationwide health information infrastructure would actually operate in order to establish interim goals and objectives, and assess the effectiveness of specific programs and initiatives.”

Yasnoff, who is advocating for a health record banking model with patient-controlled access as an effective and financially sustainable infrastructure, invites ONCHIT to “give serious consideration to adopting it as their vision.”

“This would be a major step forward and would be consistent with the goals and objectives of both Secretary Leavitt and the AHIC,” he said, referring to the American Health Information Community.

Kolodner’s VA experience gives him a “valuable perspective on the value of healthcare IT, as well as the challenges of implementing it,” said Scott Wallace, president and CEO of the National Alliance for Health Information Technology.

Going forward, Wallace said, Kolodner needs to explain the progress made since Brailer’s departure. “There is so much going on–at AHIC, in standards harmonization, in the NHIN demonstrations – that people in healthcare have a hard time sorting it all out,” he said. “His role as communicator of the agenda is really central.”

Leavitt said Kolodner’s first assignment should be to secure ONCHIT’s funding, which would address industry skepticism, and then ensure that the current strategy meets its milestones. “Then, I’m sure he’ll have his own great ideas to add to the initiative,” he said.