James Paul Gfrerer, an ex-marine and former executive director at Ernst & Young, has been confirmed by the Senate to serve as assistant secretary of information and technology and CIO (chief information officer) at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Gfrerer, a Trump nominee, permanently takes the place of former VA CIO Scott Blackburn, who resigned from his position last April. Blackburn had been appointed as the department’s acting CIO since October 2017. The VA replaced Blackburn with Camilo Sandoval, a former Trump campaign director of data operations.
The Department of Veterans Affairs hasn’t had a permanent chief information officer for two years.
One of Gfrerer’s top projects will be VA’s continued work in replacing the department’s 40-year-old legacy EHR (electronic health record) system, called VistA, by adopting the same platform as the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), a Cerner EHR system. That contract was finally signed last May and the implementation project is scheduled to span over 10 years.
Gfrere was confirmed as part of the Senate’s last day of business in the 115th Congress.
Prior to joining Ernst & Young, Gfrerer served in the United States Marine Corps for more than two decades and was a Department of Defense Detailee to the Department of State leading interagency portfolios in counterterrorism and cybersecurity, according to the White House.
