Office of the National Coordinator has a new Senior Advisor for Consumer e-Health, and it’s @Lygeia!

Lygeia Ricciardi (@Lygeia) wrote me to let me know that the word is out. She’s the new Senior Advisor for Consumer e-Health, in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. What does the Senior Advisor for Consumer e-Health do, you ask? Here’s what Lygeia told me – the Senior Advisor for Consumer e-Health is :

Responsible for developing and managing ONC’s national consumer e-health program. It involves working closely with other ONC team members and staff across ONC programs (eg Meaningful Use, Beacon Communities, Regional Extension Centers, State HIEs) to meet goals in the following areas:

  • – Serve as ONC subject matter expert on consumer e-health
  • – Serve as a liaison to FACAs
  • – Forge alliances with consumer orgs, technology and care delivery innovators, and consumer advocates to further the consumer e-health agenda
  • – Look for federal and state legislative levers to further consumer goals
  • – Develop consumer oriented strategies across ONC programs, and generate new program ideas
  • – Provide oversight of contracts
  • – Represent consumer related e-health policy matters to a variety of audiences (within HHS, within Fed gov’t, for the general public)

That’s what the position is. I know what Lygeia is, and that is a creative, driven, great (dare I say awesome) representative of the best energy to improve the health of people where they live, work, and play, and the communities that support them and vice versa. I’m excited for her, for the Office of the National Coordinator, and the people of the United States.

I expect that more information will be coming from Lygeia and ONC, so this is more the update that I’ll be continuing to follow and support her work closely, you should, too :).

15 Comments

First of all, thanks to Ted for his generous words, and to others who have tweeted and retweeted them, or sent their own kind wishes my way.

I'm really excited about the new position at ONC, and one of the things I'm thinking about is how to creatively leverage social media in it. I'll need to engage a wide variety of people regularly in order to do the job well, and social media is one of the best ways to do so.

As for the comment by "EMR and HIPAA," though it's only day 2 of my job, my intention is to continue to tweet and otherwise share what I really think online. As far as I can tell, this Administration and a lot of the people within HHS specifically are genuinely committed to openness and the free exchange of ideas. Have a look at the Open Government Initiative: http://www.whitehouse.gov/open (and they didn't tell me to say that, honest!)

Many people within the government don't currently use Twitter and other social media tools, but as more of us do, it will shift the culture.

Ted Eytan, MD