Dr. Farzad Mostashari takes the helm of the HHS Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, the office that facilitates distribution of $20 billion in economic stimulus law funds for digital medical systems.
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality awarded 12 task orders to help support training, Web sites, meetings and knowledge sharing for health IT.
HHS is collaborating with the Justice Department on nationwide health data exchange, but that does not mean the data will go to law enforcement or national security agencies, according to Dr. David Blumenthal, national coordinator for health IT.
One of the important issues in the health IT discussion is whether patient medical data can be kept private and anonymous, and now the HHS is looking for a contractor to research that question.
The Health and Human Services Department announced it is preparing to award a sole-source contract to Verisign for managed public-key infrastructure services and digital certificates on the Nationwide Health Information Network.
Federal health officials are distributing $1.2 billion in economic stimulus law funding to state agencies and nonprofits to advance adoption of health information technology.
CTO Aneesh Chopra is seeking to improve innovation in government health IT by seeking new procurement channels to increase input from vendors, according to a research firm.