AHIC Successor now National eHealth Collaborative—sans nurses
The group once known informally as AHIC 2.0 and later AHIC Successor finally has a name of its own: the National eHealth Collaborative. This completes the privatization of the American Health Information Community (AHIC), a public-private advisory board to the secretary of Health & Human Services.
Leadership positions for 2009 remain as announced a month ago:
- Chair: John Tooker, M.D., executive VP and CEO of the American College of Physicians
- Vice chair: Kevin Hutchison, president and CEO of e-prescribing vendor Prematics, Vienna, Va.
- Treasurer: Thomas Fritz, CEO of Inland Northwest Health Services, Spokane, Wash.
- Secretary: Laura Miller, interim executive director of the National eHealth Collaborative
Other board members include:
- Laura Adams, president and CEO, Rhode Island Quality Institute
- Simon Cohn, M.D., associate executive director for health information policy at Kaiser Permanente
- Janet Corrigan, Ph.D., president and CEO, National Quality Forum
- Arthur Davidson, M.D., director of public health informatics and preparedness for the Denver Public Health Department
- Linda Dillman, EVP for benefits and risk management, Wal-Mart Stores
- Lori Evans (Policy Committee chair), deputy commissioner of the New York State Department of Health and a former aide to David Brailer, M.D., in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
- Steven Findlay, managing editor, Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs, Consumers Union
- John Glaser, Ph.D., (Value Case Coordination Committee Vice-Chair), VP and CIO, Partners HealthCare System, Boston
- C. Martin Harris, M.D., Cleveland Clinic CIO
- Charles Kennedy, M.D., (Mission Development Committee chair), VP for health IT, WellPoint
- Michael Lardiere, LCSW, director of health IT and senior advisor for behavioral health, National Association of Community Health Centers
- Jonathan Perlin, M.D., Ph.D., chief medical officer and president of clinical services, HCA, and former under secretary for health at the Department of Veterans Affairs
- Stephen Ruberg, Ph.D., (Membership & Communications Committee chair), senior research fellow, Eli Lilly & Co.
- Lisa Simpson, (Policy Committee vice chair), director, Child Policy Research Center, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
- Paul Tang, M.D., (Value Case Coordination Committee Chair), VP and CMIO, Palo Alto Medical Foundation
The panel also includes three federal liaisons, National HIT Coordinator Robert Kolodner, M.D., and representatives of the HHS and VA secretaries. Obviously, the latter two will change on Jan. 20.
That seems like a pretty impressive roster, but remember the controversy about the Google Health Advisory Council a year and a half ago? The Internet giant came under fire for not including any nurses, medical librarians and even radiologists. While it’s nice to see a behavioral health specialist on the National eHealth Collaborative, there are no nurses or medical librarians anywhere to be found here, either. I didn’t bother to look up the specialties of the many doctors on this panel, but isn’t it incongruous to overlook nurses and librarians?
For what it’s worth, several board members were to meet today with the Obama transition team. Perhaps someone has an inkling of who might be appointed to head CMS or the Veterans Health Administration? That’s what I’m waiting for.
UPDATE, Jan 11: I’ve just been informed that nurses are in fact on this board. I’m told that Laura Adams is a nurse, though her bio does not seem to reflect that. Also, Linda Fischetti, who I know is an RN, is the non-voting liaison to NeHC from the VA. Still, it does seem like nursing might be a little under-represented, given the field’s overall importance in healthcare.