The Chicago-based Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT) has appointed Karen M. Bell, M.D., as its chair, effective April 26.
Previously, Bell was senior vice president of Health Information Technology Services at Masspro, the federally-contracted Quality Improvement Organization within Massachusetts. She replaces retiring chair Mark Leavitt, M.D., Ph.D., who led the Commission since its inception in 2004.
Prior to her tenure at Masspro, Bell was director, Office of Health Information Technology Adoption, and acting deputy of the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), and was ONC’s representative on CCHIT’s board of commissioners from 2006 to 2008. She also has served as division director for the quality improvement group for the office of standards and quality for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, and medical director at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island, among other positions.
A graduate of Tufts University School of Medicine, Bell has experience as an internal medicine practitioner and as an associate professor at the University of Rochester. She was also a clinical instructor at Harvard University School of Medicine.
