by
Joan Trombetti, Writer | March 22, 2009
The Department of Health and Human Services named David Blumenthal, M.D., as national coordinator for health information technology.
Blumenthal served as director of the Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners HealthCare System in Boston, a professor of medicine and health policy at Harvard Medical School, and senior health adviser to the Obama campaign.
As national coordinator, he will lead the implementation of a nationwide health information technology infrastructure as called for in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
"As a practicing physician and a leading scholar on health information technology, Dr. Blumenthal is uniquely qualified to help America's doctors, nurses, hospitals and patients reap the benefits of a modernized health system," said HHS spokesperson Jenny Backus.
