Scott Wallace has resigned as the president and chief executive officer of the National Alliance for Health Information Technology, and the board is considering what changes are needed in the organization.
“It is time to take stock, to consider the best way forward since much still remains to be done” before interoperable health information technology is pervasive in the United States, said a statement today from Alliance board chairman Curt Selquist , retired chairman of Johnson and Johnson Health Care Systems Inc.
“We need to be aggressive in pursuit of these outcomes,” Selquist said.
Selquist is serving as interim CEO of the Chicago-based organization. Wallace, who had led the Alliance since 2003, said, “I am looking forward to taking a little time off to recharge before announcing some new health technology ventures.”
“While there have been unprecedented advances in the adoption and use of health information technology, there is enormous unfulfilled potential that needs be realized sooner rather than later. This will require new strategies and tactics and a different operating structure,” Selquist’s statement said.
Wallace served as chairman of the Commission on Systemic Interoperability, a congressionally created body that produced a report and recommendations in 2005. More recently, the Alliance has been developing consensus definitions for major health IT terms under a contract from the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT.
Government Health IT presents Rick Friedman, director of the division of state systems for the Center for Medicaid and State Operations with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in this recent eSeminar regarding how the federal Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services is partnering with state Medicaid and health and human services officials to bring Medicaid into the digital age. Paul McCloskey, Government Health IT editor, moderates.
