WASHINGTON – David Blumenthal, MD, the national coordinator for health information technology, announced his departure from the ONC just 17 days before the HIMSS11 conference began on Feb. 19 in Orlando, Fla. Blumenthal came onboard just two weeks prior to HIMSS09.
Industry leaders credit Blumenthal, who is leaving this spring and returning to teaching at Harvard Medical School, with building a solid base for health IT in his two years in office.
Who will fill his shoes?
Some have speculated that his successor may be his second-in-command, Farzad Mostashari, MD, the ONC’s Deputy National Coordinator for Programs and Policy. Ann Farrell, a principal at Farrell Associates and former nurse, believes that William Bria, MD, the CMIO of Shriners Hospital for Children in Tampa, Fla., would be the ideal replacement.
According to ONC spokeswoman Nancy Szemraj, the Department of Health and Human Services has not made any decisions yet on Blumenthal's replacement.
In a memo to ONC staff last month, Blumenthal’s boss, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, said the HHS would conduct a national search for Blumenthal’s successor, but she offered no timetable.
“Of course, there's much more work to be done,” Sebelius wrote. “David will continue to guide ONC until his departure, when the rest of the remarkable team at ONC will forge ahead with this office's critical mission. We will conduct a national search to find the right successor for this key position.”
For the first time in two years, Blumenthal was not in attendance at the popular annual ONC Town Hall meeting held Feb. 22 at HIMSS11. (He did, however, give a keynote speech the following day.)
Mostashari led the meeting, saying that, “with David’s departure, this is a time to analyze if we’re on the right track.”
“Most would agree we’re on the right track,” he said, “but we need to keep moving ahead, and that’s what we intend to do. We need to constantly focus on improving and doing a better job."
“In a sense, David is now handing the mantle back to us,” Mostashari said. “We, together, have to carry the ball forward. Let us know when policies keep you from being successful.”
The first order of business for Blumenthal's replacement will be guiding meaningful use incentives into the future. Some 17,000 providers have registered to participate in Stage 1 of the incentive program, with more signing up on a daily basis, according to the ONC.
David Lansky, co-chairman of the Health IT Policy Committee’s Quality Measures Workgroup, said the ONC wants to put into the "refinement pipeline" some of the best suggestions from public comments collected last December on quality measures for Stage 2. He said the workgroup plans to have the development, testing and validation of the quality measures for Stage 2 completed by the fourth quarter of this year.
Blumenthal's successor will step into a diplomatic quagmire, as some industry heavyweights are calling for a delay of meaningful use Stage 2 requirements, expected to begin in 2013.
Tony Trenkle, director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Office of e-Health Standards, responsible for co-writing meaningful use regulations with the ONC, has said there is no way that Stage 2 will be delayed.
