American Academy of Family Physicians Hires David Kibbe, M.D., as Director of Health Information Technology

LEAWOOD, Kan. — The American Academy of Family Physicians has hired David Kibbe, M.D., as the Director of Health Information Technology. Kibbe assumed his Academy duties on May 1, 2002. Kibbe, a family physician from Chapel Hill, N.C., is the founder and board chair of Canopy Systems, Inc., an Internet application service provider that specializes in care coordination solutions.

Kibbe will work with standard-setting organizations and technology vendors and will assist in providing AAFP commentary to the federal Health and Human Services (HHS) and Commission on Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) on implementation of the Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act (HIPAA) provisions. He will also serve as the Academy’s expert on health information technology, focusing on practice management and electronic medical records.

The Health Insurance Portability Accountability Act mandates the setting of uniform health information standards that will govern the transmission of electronic data exchanges between physicians and health plans, and includes standards for the security and privacy protection of patients’ health information.

“The tremendous influx of technology into physician’s offices requires family physicians to be knowledgeable about products and services that improve efficiency. Dr. Kibbe’s expertise in this area will aid in investigating affordable and effective electronic patient medical record systems that meet the needs of Academy members,” said Douglas E. Henley, M.D., AAFP Executive Vice President.

Kibbe is an adjunct assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health and a health informatics consultant, frequently speaking about HIPAA. He served in Texas as a National Health Services Corps family physician, where he ran a successful private practice and directed a hospice and home health agency for nine years.

Since 2000, Kibbe has been active with the North Carolina Healthcare Information and Communications Alliance, Inc. and currently serves as the organization’s president-elect. Kibbe earned a master’s degree in business administration with concentration in health-care management in 1990 from the University of Texas, Austin and completed an internship in family medicine at the Maine Medical Center in Portland, Maine in 1980. He earned a medical degree from Case-Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1979 and received a bachelor’s degree in history and science from Harvard University in 1973.