The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), slowly compiling a new leadership team after its well-documented turnover this past fall, is bringing on a new CMO.
Thomas Mason, M.D., the CMIO of the Ambulatory and Community Health Network for the Chicago-based Cook County Health and Hospitals System, is the ONC's hire for CMO. According to a staff-wide email from Karen DeSalvo, M.D. the National Coordinator for Health IT, Mason led implementation of an outpatient EHR system at Cook County across 16 primary care health centers and 110 specialty care clinic. He also led patient-centered medical home (PCMH) efforts at Cook County.
"Tom, as am I, is a huge champion for advancing a person-centered, interoperable, learning health system that results in better care, better quality and better outcomes for individual, community and population health. He will report directly to me," DeSalvo wrote.
Mason replaces Jacob Reider, M.D. who served as CMO/Deputy National Coordinator at ONC until his departure late last year. Reider left a team when ONC was undergoing turnover at many of the top positions and DeSalvo was recruited for another role within the Department of Health and Human Services. Recently, ONC has begun to fill those positions along with some others, with Mason's hire being the latest.
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