New Year, New National Coordinator Of Health IT
By John Oncea, Editor
Karen DeSalvo has been selected to lead the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, will replace Acting National Coordinator Jacob Reider January 13
Numerous sources, including Government Health IT, have reported, “The Department of Health and Human Services announced … that Karen DeSalvo, MD, City of New Orleans Health Commissioner, will take over the helm of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.” DeSalvo will replace Jacob Reider, MD, who has been serving as the Acting National Coordinator for Health Information Technology since late September, starting January 13. Reider will return to his post as ONC Chief Medical Officer.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in an email to staff, noted DeSalvo “has advocated increasing the use of health information technology (HIT) to improve access to care, the quality of care, and overall population health outcomes – including efforts post-Katrina to redesign of the health system with HIT as a foundational element.
“Dr. DeSalvo’s hands-on experience with health delivery system reform and HIT and its potential to improve health care and public health will be invaluable assets to the Office of the National Coordinator and the Department.”
DeSalvo, a former Tulane University medical professor, “Took on a prominent role after Hurricane Katrina in fostering the growth of primary care clinics around the New Orleans area,” according to The New Orleans Advocate. “The expanded network of clinics, built without the help of federal grant money, became a key resource for the uninsured, who were left with reduced access to health care after the storm.”
NOLA.com writes, “DeSalvo has been an advocate of expanding primary care in New Orleans and helped to lead the effort to establish community based clinics available to low-income and uninsured New Orleanians.” ‘It has been a tremendous honor and a life-changing experience to serve our community as Health Commissioner,’” DeSalvo said in a written statement issued by the city.”
DeSalvo, whom New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu credited for “overhauling the health department and rebuilding community trust in public health,” has been New Orleans’ Health Commissioner since 2011. She received an undergraduate degree in biology and political science from Suffolk University in Boston then moved to Tulane University Health Sciences Center where she simultaneously received her Medical Doctorate and Masters of Public Health.
Earlier this year, DeSalvo was named one of Governing Magazine’s nine public officials of the year. “The (health) department today is more proactive and more receptive to working with the private sector, says Warner Thomas, the CEO of Ochsner Health System, the largest nonprofit health system Louisiana. “I just see a much more collaborative department of public health for the city,” Thomas says. “That’s been a huge change since Karen has taken over leadership.”
DeSalvo spoke at Health 2.0’s inaugural meeting at San Francisco's BioInnovation Center in July according to the Silicon Bayou News. “'Data is so important. Innovation is critical,'” said DeSalvo in front of a packed audience. DeSalvo spoke of the impact of Hurricane Katrina on producing opportunities to change the health sector. She spoke of the new Louisiana Healthcare Redesign Collaboration, which places an emphasis on primary care, preventive medicine, and neighborhood-based medical homes. These medical homes use electronic health records that are on an information exchange, providing a means for us to follow a patient as they move through the healthcare system in New Orleans. These efforts allow us to acquire and aggregate data from low-income individuals normally invisible to the system.
"She further spoke about how Hurricane Katrina made us aware of the impact of losing track of all your patients data when paper information is lost (submerged and turn into bricks). When electronic health records are unavailable especially in times of emergency, we can’t locate those at immediate risk. We moreover realized the power of aggregated data during Hurricane Isaac when patient data obtained through Medicare could locate patients on ventilators when the electricity went down. This provided a means to distribute resources (i.e. electricity) to sites with immediate need."
Anjum Khurshid, M.D., director of the Health Systems Division at the New Orleans-based Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI), and head of the Crescent City Beacon Community initiative, told Healthcare Informatics, “We are delighted in New Orleans for Karen, and also for her organization. And in fact, I just spoke with her this morning; she very graciously called me this morning to let me know, and she herself is very excited. The work that she’s been able to accomplish in New Orleans over a short period of time has been tremendous, and the kind of leadership she’s brought here to the community is a model of efficient, community-based, patient-centered focus. And with her background as a primary care provider, in public health, and in academia, we could not imagine a better person.”
DeSalvo is the fifth person to lead National Coordinator for Health IT, following Farzad Mostashari (who retired in August), David Blumenthal, Robert Kolodner, and David Brailer – the first ONC head when the position was established by former President George W. Bush in 2004.