In naming David Blumenthal, MD, MPP, as his national coordinator for health information technology, President Barack Obama has selected someone with healthcare and policy experience to lead the nearly $20 billion healthcare information technology effort.
Blumenthal, a Harvard Medical School graduate and professor, is an internist and expert in health policy and healthcare delivery systems. He has a lengthy resume in healthcare, including founding director of Partners HealthCare System's Institute for Health Policy (IHP) that "conducts research to support quality and efficiency improvement within Partners HealthCare, to inform and influence health policy on the national level, and more broadly, to improve health and healthcare across America and in other nations worldwide," according to its Web site.
In addition to Blumenthal's work in healthcare, he has served in the political realm as a staff member on Sen. Edward Kennedy's Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research, served on the White House Health Professional Advisory Group during the Clinton administration, and was a senior health advisor for President Barack Obama's presidential campaign.
Blumenthal's appointment comes a week after HHS created the Office of Recovery Act Coordination, which will oversee the distribution of about $137 billion in stimulus funds. Of the $19 billion in health IT funds Blumenthal will handle, about $17 billion of that sum is slated for incentive payments through Medicare and Medicaid for providers who adopt electronic health records.
In a statement announcing the appointment, Jenny Backus, spokeswoman for HSS, said Blumenthal "has the experience and the vision to help" reform healthcare and is "uniquely qualified" as a practicing physician and leading scholar on health IT. "Dr. Blumenthal shares President Obama's commitment to investing in a health IT infrastructure that will protect patient privacy, and improve both quality and efficiency in our nation's health system."
Blumenthal has already created a blueprint for how the federal government should push for widespread use of interoperable health IT systems. He wrote an article for The Commonwealth Fund in January that suggests four ways the federal government can spark health IT adoption:
- Stimulate adoption of electronic health records
- Stimulate interoperability
- Create incentives to use electronic health records (EHR) to improve quality and efficiency
- Stimulate technical progress
With his new position, Blumenthal will need to work on those four areas—and he won't have time to ease into the role. According to the stimulus bill, standards and specifications for the health IT portion of the bill are expected by the end of this year. In the standards, the feds will have to define "certified" EHR products and how physician practices can meet the legislation's "meaningful use" requirement. Practices that meet that requirement are eligible for Medicare and Medicaid incentives starting in 2011.
In addition to his health IT work, Blumenthal has investigated healthcare reform in a historical context. He and his co-author James Morone wrote a book called "The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office" scheduled for release in June that examines the role presidents since Franklin D. Roosevelt have taken in addressing healthcare reform. As part of their research, the authors analyzed President Lyndon Johnson's taped Oval Office conversations and other archival materials concerning the Medicare and Medicaid legislation. They found that the president played a larger role in getting the landmark legislation passed than previously believed by historians.
In a potentially revealing look into what is to come, Blumenthal and Morone wrote that "speed is essential" for healthcare reform, highlighting Johnson's fast action in 1965 compared to President Bill Clinton's slower healthcare reform movement in 1993.
Health IT and healthcare officials praised Blumenthal's appointment as the right person for the job.
Joseph C. Kvedar, MD, director of the Center for Connected Health at Partners HealthCare System, has worked with Blumenthal at Partners. Kvedar says Blumenthal brings experience in both policy and research related to how health IT affects patient care. "I think the Obama administration is sending a very clear signal that [health IT] is a very high priority item. They couldn't have chosen a more talented, qualified individual to head this up," he says.
Vince Kuraitis, principal at Better Health Technologies in Boise, ID, says Blumenthal recognizes the "critical importance of interoperability" and he understands that provider payment reform and health IT reform are "inextricably linked."
"He understands the necessity to get the market to adopt standards for data exchange. Specifying standards are only a first step toward adoption of standards. The federal government can play a critical role as catalyst and market organizer. He recognizes that [electronic medical records] EMRs are a means, not an end in and of themselves. He understands that providers need to be incentivized and rewarded for improving quality and outcomes by using EMRs, not simply rewarded for purchasing EMRs," says Kuraitis.
On his blog, Life as a Healthcare CIO, John D. Halamka, MD, MS, chief information officer of the CareGroup Health System and chief information officer and dean for technology at Harvard Medical School, called Blumenthal an "icon in the Massachusetts community."
"He's created numerous organizations, collaborations, and study groups to better understand the effective use of information technology in healthcare. . . He's advised presidents. He understands the need to create policy and technology in parallel," wrote Halamka.
David C. Kibbe, MD, MBA, principal of The Kibbe Group, LLC, in Pittsboro, N.C., and senior advisor for the Center for Health Information Technology at American Academy of Family Physicians, says he is confident that Blumenthal will find a way to deploy health IT that "makes the outcomes of technology the main objective."
"He brings a background of health services research and policy study to an area of healthcare, the uses of information technology, that has received a great deal of hyperbolic cheerleading from certain quarters, but which has not been well connected to health reform policy objectives, such as improvement in quality, safety, or cost," he adds.
Les Masterson is senior editor of Health Plan Insider. He can be reached at lmasterson@healthleadersmedia.com.