The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) has announced that Robert Wah, M.D., former American Medical Association (AMA) president and Carolyn Petersen, senior editor of Mayo Clinic’s health information website, will be the new co-chairs of the government’s Health Information Technology Advisory Committee (HITAC).
ONC announced the news on Twitter yesterday.
The 21st Century Cures Act established the HIT Advisory Committee, which replaces and merges two separate health IT policy committees that were previously overseen by ONC—the Health IT Policy and Standards Committees. The new committee’s role will be to provide guidance on policies, standards, implementation specifications, and certification criteria relating to the implementation of a health information technology infrastructure that advances the electronic access, exchange, and use of health information.
The HIT Advisory Committee is made up of 25 members and held its first meeting last month. One of its first core projects is to work on the government’s Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), released last month by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and which outlines a common set of principles for trusted exchange and minimum terms and conditions for trusted exchange.
Dr. Wah, a reproductive endocrinologist and OB-GYN in McLean, Va., was president of the AMA from June 2014 to June 2015. Wah is currently the global chief medical officer at DXC Technology, a global IT solutions company. Petersen is the senior editor of mayoclinic.org, Mayo Clinic’s health information website.
