HHS Chief Data Officer Mona Siddiqui Departs Agency

After three years serving as chief data officer at the Department of Health & Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the CTO, Mona Siddiqui, M.D., will be departing the agency.

In a blog post, Siddiqui said she is “immensely proud of everything that the Data Team has accomplished and will continue to drive.” This includes, according to the post, “developing a technology stack to enable enterprise data sharing, implementing a data governance approach, establishing a data science and AI training program and consistently working with a broad group of stakeholders to move the department forward in its strategy on opioids, AI, data privacy, collaboration with states and social determinants of health.”

According to HHS’ website, the Office of the CTO works to “test and validate solutions to solve challenging problems in the delivery of health and human services.”

Prior to serving at HHS, Siddiqui was at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) working towards implementing a rapid cycle testing platform for payment models. She also served with the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences Team during the Obama administration.

Although Siddiqui has not yet confirmed this publicly, Politico reported today that she will be taking a vice president role at Humana, an organization that has also reeled in Kate Goodrich, M.D., who is currently the chief medical officer at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). It’s expected that Goodrich will join the insurer sometime in the next month, according to media reports.

Goodrich has been a key figure in the development of CMS’ value-based care programs such as MACRA (the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015).  In addition to being CMO, since 2012, Goodrich has been in the role of Director, Quality Measurement & Value-Based Incentives Group (QMVIG) (previously called the Quality Measurement and Health Assessment Group) at CMS.