Keynote Address

National Perspectives and Activity Regarding Health Information Technology and Exchange

Karen M. Bell MD, MMS
Director, Office of Health IT Adoption, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology
[Click here to view slides]

MP3 File

Karen M. Bell M.D., M.M.S. is Director, Division of Quality Improvement Policy for Ambulatory and Chronic Care, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Dr. Bell is a board certified internist with extensive experience in office practice, public health, academic medicine, physician support, and the commercial health insurance sector. She joined CMS in October, 2004 after developing successful payer contracting models in two states which provided financial support for the adoption of clinical health information technologies in physician offices. Her previous position with Partners Health Care in Boston provided the opportunity to work with a number of the physician groups affiliated with Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

She graduated from Pembroke College and Tufts University School of Medicine and trained at the Harvard teaching hospitals in Internal Medicine. She spent two years at Toronto General Hospital and finished an infectious disease fellowship at the University of Chicago before accepting an appointment at the University of Rochester and the Dept. of Public Health in Rochester, NY. While in Rochester, Dr. Bell was a co-Principal Investigator on the Medicare Demonstration Project that led to coverage of influenza vaccine for Medicare beneficiaries.

When first relocating to Boston, she was an Instructor at Harvard Medical School, teaching in the second year core curriculum, while practicing as an internist at Massachusetts General Hospital and serving as an Associate Medical Director at Harvard Community Health Plan. She maintains licensure in both Massachusetts and Maine, and continues to reside in Massachusetts with her husband, a cardiologist at MGH. She is an active member of the Massachusetts Medical Society.

Jon White MD
Portfolio Manager for Health Information Technology, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
[Click here to view slides]

Jon White, M.D. is a family physician and portfolio manager for health IT at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He received his M.D. from the University of Virginia and trained as a resident at Lancaster General Hospital in Pennsylvania, where he received the AAFP/Mead Johnson Award for Graduate Education. He has experience in healthcare IT development and implementation in the ambulatory and acute settings, and was previously CMIO and associate residency director of Lancaster General Hospital. Jon is active in the AAFP, AMIA and HIMSS. His interests include practical application of IT to improve healthcare and medical history.

Susan Christensen
Senior Advisor, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
[Click here to view slides]

MP3 File

Bill Braithwaite , MD, PhD
VP and CMO eHealth Initiative
[Click here to view slides]

MP3 File

William Braithwaite, M.D., Ph.D. serves as the chief clinical officer for the eHealth Initiative and its Foundation, providing clinical and technical insight into the programmatic and evaluation activities of the organization, particularly those focused on policies for information sharing and technical aspects of IT adoption and health information exchange. Dr. Braithwaite has dedicated his whole career to improving the quality and efficiency of health care for patients and practitioners. He was one of the authors of the Administrative Simplification Subtitle of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and a major contributor to the subsequent regulations setting federal standards for transactions, code sets, identifiers, security, and privacy of personal health information. Recently, he staffed the President’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) to help produce their June 2004 Report, “Revolutionizing Health Care Through Information Technology.” At regional, national, and international meetings, he makes presentations exploring current issues of health information technology and is frequently introduced affectionately as, "Doctor HIPAA".

A pioneer in the field of medical informatics, Dr. Braithwaite envisioned a critical role for computers in clinical practice as a medical student at the University of Chicago. After his graduation, residency, and military service, he followed that vision to get a doctorate in Medical Information Science from the University of California, San Francisco. Until 1996, he was Associate Professor and Head of the Section on Medical Informatics, which he established at the University of Colorado, School of Medicine. On a health policy sabbatical with the U.S. Senate Finance Committee health staff in 1994, he was able to promote his vision by working with an industry coalition to develop the legislative language that became the Administrative Simplification Subtitle of HIPAA. In late 1994 he was asked to work with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to continue development in the area of health information standards as Senior Advisor on Health Information Policy in the Office of the HHS Secretary. After 7 years at HHS, he served from 2001 to 2003 as National Director of HIPAA Advisory Services in the Washington DC office of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and then practiced as an independent consultant in health information policy and strategic planning from 2003 to 2005.