Doug Fridsma, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Science Officer at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), will be leaving the ONC to be President and CEO of the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA).
Dr. Fridsma’s move was announced in an email from Karen DeSalvo, M.D., the National Coordinator for Health IT, to staff members. He will be staying with ONC until November, when he starts at AMIA.
Dr. DeSalvo says Fridsma will work with the ONC to help the agency transition. There isn’t a named replacement but she says, Erica Galvez will take on more responsibilities in interoperability as interoperability portfolio manager, and Steve Posnack will continue in his role as director of the Office of Standards and Technology.
As Chief Science Officer at ONC, Fridsma helped the ONC create the Standards & Interoperability Framework, a collaborative effort where stakeholders are attempting to create interoperable data paths. Participation in that framework blossomed to include 2,980 wiki (which includes all current content and ongoing discussion that takes place in the S&I framework community) registrants, 757 committed members, 580 committed organizations, and nearly 4,000 (out of 5,000) HL7 ballot comments resolved.
Before the framework, he helped the ONC transition Nationwide Health Information Network (NwHIN) into the eHealth Exchange, a private-public partnership that operates outside the ONC. He has also worked with various other government agencies to direct the Federal Health Architecture.
