IT czar Brailer announces resignation
David Brailer, the physician informaticist named by President Bush to
spearhead the drive to bring an electronic health record to most
Americans by 2014, announced his resignation Thursday as national
coordinator for health information technology, effective May 19.
Brailer's position as national coordinator was created by Bush via an
April 27, 2004, executive order in which the president also set as a
national goal that most Americans will have access to an electronic
health record within 10 years.
During Brailer's approximately two-year reign as the nation's IT czar,
the Wharton Business School graduate has logged hundreds of thousands
of air miles to proselytize about healthcare information technology,
giving more than 200 speeches last year alone, according to a Brailer
staffer speaking on background.
Brailer's departure will come soon after the next meeting of the
American Health Information Community, an advisory committee created by
HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt last June to advise the government on
healthcare IT policy.
Leavitt named himself chairman of the AHIC, in effect, pre-empting
Brailer's role as the government's point man on healthcare IT, though
Brailer has publicly supported the heightened interest that an HHS
secretary brings to the IT effort.
In a news statement, Leavitt said he accepted Brailer's resignation
"with regret" and announced that he had invited Brailer to serve as his
co-chair of the AHIC and as a consultant to HHS, both of which Brailer
has agreed to do.
Brailer enjoyed a long honeymoon within the healthcare IT community,
with only the beginnings of even modest opposition to the programs and
directions he outlined coming within the past few months.
The Electronic Health Record Vendors Association, a group of IT
software vendors assembled under the auspices of the Healthcare
Information and Management Systems Society, independently released its
updated "Interoperability Roadmap" for a national IT network last
month, beating the release of a report due later this year from a
consortium -- of which the EHRVA is a participant -- headed by Computer
Sciences Corp. CSC has a contract through Brailer's office to develop a
prototype of a national health information network, or NHIN. Then,
Modern Healthcare broke the story last week that the EHRVA was
dissatisfied with the stringency of the standards for testing and
certifying outpatient electronic medical-records systems by another of
Brailer's office contractors, the Certification Commission for Health
Information Technology.
Brailer will continue to keep his schedule of speeches and meetings,
according to a source at ONCHIT who asked not to be identified. He will
be meeting in New York with leaders in the financial markets to preach
his private-sector approach to healthcare IT promulgation, the ONCHIT
source said, while CCHIT Chairman Mark Leavitt said Brailer will
participate via a telephone link in the commission's key meeting April
24 in which the controversial ambulatory EHR testing criteria are
scheduled for a vote.
In addition to the CCHIT work and four separate contractors working on
different prototypes of an NHIN, the Brailer legacy includes groups
working to harmonize healthcare IT data standards and addressing
medical privacy issues at the state level, all of which are to have
deliverables ready before the end of the year. Readers of Modern
Physician voted Brailer the fourth most powerful physician executive in
healthcare for 2006 while readers of Modern Healthcare voted Brailer
the most powerful person in healthcare in 2004. He finished eighth in
2005 on the Modern Healthcare reader poll.
Brailer was unavailable for comment on his future plans.
Andis Robeznieks and Matthew DoBias contributed to this story.
By Joseph Conn / HITS staff writer
===
Gregory Woodhouse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"It is foolish to answer a question that
you do not understand."
--G. Polya ("How to Solve It")
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