Blumenthal tapped for top spot
David Blumenthal, the Samuel O. Thier Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, has been named chairman of the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System. Blumenthal, who is the former national coordinator for Health Information Technology (IT), is also currently a professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School and at Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners Healthcare System. He succeeds James J. Mongan, founding chairman of the commission, who passed away on May 3. Blumenthal was chosen by President Obama to serve as national coordinator in 2009, with the charge to build an interoperable, private, and secure nationwide health information system and to support the widespread, meaningful use of health IT. He succeeded in putting in place one of the largest publicly funded infrastructure investments the nation has ever made in such a short time period, in health care or any other field. “We are very fortunate to have Dr. Blumenthal...