National Health IT Coordinator Resigns

David Brailer, M.D., Ph.D., the country's first National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, resigned from his post April 20.

Brailer was selected by President Bush in May 2004 to lead the country's health care system into an electronic future.

As reported in the Financial Times, Brailer said leaving his family in San Francisco each week to commute to Washington had been "a huge personal agony."

In an April 20 news release, HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt praised Brailer's work in promoting widespread adoption of health information technology, or health IT. "Over the past two years, David has made significant progress in advancing the president's health IT agenda and laying the building blocks for future progress," said Leavitt.

Brailer will continue as a consultant to HHS on health IT issues and has agreed to serve as vice chair of the American Health Information Community, or AHIC, an organization charged with making recommendations to the HHS secretary to facilitate the development and adoption of standards-based health IT. Last fall, AAFP EVP Douglas Henley, M.D., was appointed the sole physician representative on AHIC.

Henley lauded Brailer in his role as the nation's top health IT coordinator. Brailer "has greatly advanced the agenda for implementing health IT in our health care system," said Henley. "He's worked tirelessly to create the potential for an environment that will help achieve the necessary connectivity and interoperability of electronic health information that is so important to improving the quality of health care delivery."

Henley credited Brailer for understanding the need to focus attention on electronic health records implementation "at the level where patients usually interact with the health care system -- the small- and medium-sized practice."

"I congratulate and thank Dr. Brailer for his important work," said Henley.

David C. Kibbe, M.D., director of the Academy's Center for Health Information Technology, said about Brailer, "Prior to Dr. Brailer's appointment, it was difficult for the AAFP to get anyone interested in figuring physician practices into the health IT equation because everyone's attention was focused on the hospital setting. From day one, Dr. Brailer's framework included physician practices and the role they would play in any national health IT network."

Leavitt said, "The work of the Office of the National Coordinator will continue under the four directors below Brailer on the organization chart." No announcement has been made regarding a replacement for Brailer.