Obama's Selected New Health IT Chief - Dr. David Blumenthal

A couple bit of information include working at Massachusetts General Hospital, and substantial  information technology involvement at Harvard, and it looks like the President shopped at the “Smart Store” with a physician who believes in electronic medical records and is in the know about the rest of the Health IT efforts that go along with the entire process.  BD 

President Obama has long said he wants an IT revolution in healthcare, the idea being making medical records electronic will result in better patient care with lower costs. And already a whopping $19.5 billion in public moola has been allocated in the stimulus package towards that goal. Companies like Microsoft (MSFT) and IBM (IBM) have set up IT healthcare units, salivating over getting their piece of the pie.

Now we know who's in charge of overseeing how that $19.5 billion gets spent: Harvard Medical School Professor Dr. David Blumenthal has been named "National Coordinator for Health Information Technology."

David's been a high-profile figure in the medical establishment and a longtime advocate for making medical records electronic. He's also an old-school liberal who co-wrote a 2005 op-ed in the New York Times praising LBJ for championing Medicare. (And chiding Republicans for opposing it.)

Meet Obama's New Health IT Chief, Dr. David Blumenthal

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