ONC Names Mason CMO

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

The ONC announced that Dr. Thomas Mason will be joining the organization as the new Chief Medical Officer next month.

“I am pleased to announce that Dr. Thomas Mason will be joining ONC as the new Chief Medical Officer, effective February 23, 2015,” wrote ONC National Health IT Coordinator Karen De Salvo in an email. “Tom will lead and champion clinical oversight of ONC programs and clinical coordination within ONC.  He will also regularly engage with physician organizations.”

According to Health Data Management, Mason is a board certified internist and has 14 years of experience in primary care and preventative medicine. Maybe more importantly in this time of EHR implementation and incentive, the article points out Mason has played a key role in the implementation of multiple EHR systems and has more than 10 years of additional experience and training in the principles of public health and population medicine.

“Tom, as am I, is a huge champion for advancing a person-centered, interoperable, learning health system that results in better care, better quality and better outcomes for individual, community and population health,” says De Salvo.

Mason is currently the Chief Medical Informatics Officer of the Ambulatory and Community Health Network. At Cook County, Health Data Management reports, he has led the implementation of an outpatient EHR system consisting of 16 primary care health centers and 110 specialty care clinics staffed by more than 600 physicians and serving more than 200,000 patients a year. Cook County is the third-largest public hospital system in the country.

Earlier this month the ONC announced another staff change; Dr. Michael James McCoy assumed his position as the first Chief Information Officer for the ONC on January 26.