Health IT In Government "Progress & Best Practices"

June 25th

Program will discuss:

• Current Status and Progress Made in Health IT & with the NHIN
• Best Practices & Benefits
• Challenges or major hurdles to still overcome
• New Technologies Advances
• Vision for The Future for Health IT & NHIN

Panelists:
Vish Sankaran- Program Director, Federal Health Architecture, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
Linda Fischetti- RN MS, Chief Health Informatics Officer, Office of Health Information, Veterans Health Administration.
Dr. Leslie Lenert- MD, MS, FACMI is Director of the NationalCenter for Public Health Informatics (NCPHI) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Jim Borland- Special Advisor for Health IT, Office of the Commissioner, Social Security Administration (SSA)
Tom Simmons- Area Vice President for Federal Systems, Citrx Systems
Ken Rubin- Chief Architect, EDS

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Moderator: Jim Flyzik -Flyzik Group

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About the Panel

Jim Flyzik
President
The Flyzik Group

Jim Flyzik is the President of TheFlyzikGroup www.theflyzikgroup.com . The company specializes in Strategic Business Consulting, Performance Based Contracting Consulting and Training and Thought Leadership media events. The company assists small, medium and large companies in providing world-class government services. Jim also serves as the Chairman of the Information Technology Association of America Committee on Homeland Security. Jim also hosts the monthly radio program, The Federal Executive Forum on WFED 1500 AM and www.federalnewsradio.com .

Jim served over 27 years in the federal government. He served as Senior Advisor to Governor Ridge in the White House Office of Homeland Security (OHS). He provided advice to OHS on the National Strategy and Information Management in support of the OHS mission. From February 1998 until December 2002, Jim also served as the Vice Chair of the Federal Government CIO Council overseeing numerous governmentwide IT initiatives. He was also a member of the President's Critical Infrastructure Protection Board.

Prior to this, from August 1997 until April 2002, Jim was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Information Systems and Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Department of the Treasury. He provided oversight, strategic planning and management direction on over $3.0 billion in annual information technology and information infrastructure programs within Treasury and its fourteen Bureaus. Jim also served as the Acting Assistant Secretary for Management for the Treasury Department from January 20, 2001 until February 8, 2002. In that role he provided oversight of all Treasury bureaus and served as the principal policy advisor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary on matters involving the internal management of the Department and its bureaus. Jim received the Secretary Certificate of Appreciation on February 12, 2002 for his efforts during this transition period.

Prior to his Treasury positions, Jim worked for 15 years at the U.S. Secret Service where he held key IT management positions, including the Chief of the Communications Division, providing world class telecommunications in support of Secret Service tactical and operational requirements.
Jim served as Team Leader on Vice President Gore's National Performance Review (NPR) Information Technology Team. Following this assignment, he was selected as Chairman of the Government Information Technology Services Working Group, to implement the NPR Information Technology recommendations and coordinate the government services portion of the National Information Infrastructure (NII). He was given the prestigious Eagle Award as the government information technology executive of the year in 1994, a Meritorious Presidential Rank Award in 1995, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Award for Excellence in Information Technology in 1996, the AFFIRM Award for Outstanding Service to the Citizens in 1997, the Industry Advisory Council Award for Special Achievements and Leadership in 1997, the AFFIRM IRM Executive of the Year Award in 1998, and the Distinguished Rank Executive Award from President Clinton in 1999. In 2001 the Federation of Government Information Processing Councils presented him the John J. Franke award for outstanding government service. In March 2002, Jim was selected by the Federal CIO Council to receive the Azimuth Award as the Government Executive of the Year.

Jim has extensive public speaking experience and frequently serves as a featured speaker at industry events. He has developed, and currently teaches part-time, a graduate level course on Information Systems Security and Risk Assessment at the University of Maryland. Jim was given the Stanley J. Drazek Excellence in Teaching Award in 1998 by the University of Maryland.

Jim has an undergraduate degree in Business Administration and Computer Science and a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Maryland with an area of concentration in Information Systems Management.

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Vish Sankaran- Program Director, Federal Health Architecture, Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

Vish Sankaran was appointed Director of the Federal Health Architecture (FHA) program in the Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in March 2007. As FHA director, he has driven collaboration among federal agencies to advance the adoption of interoperable health IT in order to allow for the secure exchange of health information within the federal government, and with state, tribal, and local governments and the private sector. This goal is being achieved through initiatives that provide federal business needs management, and systematic investment planning, reporting and interoperability architecture.

Under Mr. Sankaran's leadership, FHA has worked with federal agencies to rapidly and efficiently implement government-wide solutions for interoperable and secure health information exchange that address agency business priorities while protecting citizen privacy. FHA serves the needs of more than twenty federal agencies in domains as diverse as military and veterans' healthcare, public health monitoring, long-term care and disability services, research, tribal health services and many other critical federal priorities.

Before arriving at HHS in 2005, Mr. Sankaran worked in the private-sector healthcare technology field. He was the director of IT and product operations at CareScience Inc, a healthcare application service provider that helps hospitals and health systems improve care management, clinical performance and data sharing. While at CareScience, he developed strategies to achieve organizational goals, built cohesive teams, increased operational efficiency and reduced costs. In that position, he administered architecture and operations of healthcare software products, including health information exchange solutions.

In February, 2009, Mr. Sankaran was named as one of the Federal 100 by the editors of Federal Computer Week. The Federal 100 recognizes individuals from government, industry and academia who significantly influenced how the federal government buys, uses or manages information technology. Federal 100 winners are recognized for their risk-taking, vision and pioneering spirit in the federal IT community.

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Linda Fischetti- RN MS, Chief Health Informatics Officer, Office of Health Information, Veterans Health Administration.

Linda Fischetti, RN, MS, is the Chief Health Informatics Officer for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Office of Health Information at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In this role, she leads VHA's health information standards and interoperability, innovation, informatics, and the broadly recognized electronic Personal Health Record and barcode programs. She also serves as VHA's liaison to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, and is designated as VHA's representative to many Federal and private-sector health information technology activities, including the Nationwide Health Information Network activities.

Ms. Fischetti has diverse experience as a health information technology implementer, as senior project manager for clinical information technology development, and as a health information systems architect. Her articles on informatics topics have been published in numerous publications. She is an advisor to the University of Maryland School of Nursing Informatics Program. She also is an elected Member at Large of the Health Level 7 Board of Directors, is a Federally-appointed Board of Director member of the Health Information Technology Standards Panel and is currently representing the Secretary of the Department of Veteran Affairs on the Board of the National eHealth Collaborative.

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Dr. Leslie Lenert- MD, MS, FACMI is Director of the NationalCenter for Public Health Informatics (NCPHI) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Leslie Lenert, MD, MS, FACMI is Director of the National Center for Public Health Informatics (NCPHI) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). NCPHI mission is to protect the public's health and to transform public health practice your advancement of the science of public health informatics. A graduate of the University of California Riverside and University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, Dr. Lenert has completed training in Internal Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine and fellowships in Clinical Pharmacology and in Medical Informatics at Stanford University.

Prior to coming to the CDC, Dr. Lenert was Professor of Medicine at University of California San Diego and Associate Director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, and Director of Health Services Research at the Department of Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System. As the first permanent Director of NCPHI, Dr. Lenert has worked to improve linkages between clinical data systems and public health, to transform national real-time surveillance systems using grid technologies, and to move leading CDC software platforms including Epi Info, NEDSS, and PHIN-MS to the open source environment. Dr. Lenert has published over 100 articles, book chapters and other scientific publications on various topics in health informatics. He is a member of the editorial boards of JAMIA, JBMI and the IJMI, and is a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics.

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Jim Borland- Special Advisor for Health IT, Office of the Commissioner, Social Security Administration (SSA)

Jim Borland was named Special Advisor for Health IT by Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue in March 2009. In that role, Jim coordinates the agency's internal health IT efforts and represents SSA with other agencies and the private sector. Social Security is a leader in the federal sector in the use of Health IT to improve the quality and efficiency of the disability claims process while maintaining high standards for privacy and security.

He previously served as the Deputy Associate Commissioner for Electronic Services, pursuing and promoting automated solutions to the vexing, demographically-induced service challenges facing the Social Security Administration. Jim also served in senior positions in the Office of Systems, where he oversaw IT security policy implementation, managed the Agency's infrastructure portfolio and served as senior advisor and manager of the agency's second data center project. A member of the Senior Executive Service since 2005, Jim joined SSA's Office of Communications in 2000 as the Deputy Associate Commissioner for Communications Policy and Technology.

Prior to joining SSA, Jim served in various analytical, technical and leadership positions over 16 years with the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Education in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of SSA's SES Candidate Development Program and alumnus of the American Political Science Association's Congressional Fellowship Program.

Jim is a life-long resident of the Baltimore area, a graduate of Towson University, and a resident of Ellicott City, Maryland.

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Tom Simmons- Area Vice President for Federal Systems, Citrx Systems

Tom Simmons is the Area Vice President for Citrix Federal Systems. Tom brings Citrix over 25 years of information technology sales and management experience, with a core emphasis on the Public Sector market. Tom acts as both spokesperson and advocate for public/private partnerships around technology initiatives such as Disaster Recovery, Telework, HSPD-12, SOA, Thin Client, and IT Consolidation.

His understanding of the unique requirements of both government customers and the systems integrators who support them has helped drive Citrix's year-over-year growth in this market. Prior to Citrix, Tom has served in senior management positions with companies like Trend Micro, MicroWarehouse and Compaq driving their Federal sales efforts.

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Ken Rubin- Chief Architect, EDS

Ken Rubin is the Chief Architect for EDS' Federal Healthcare Portfolio. Primarily focused on health informatics, enterprise architecture, and electronic health record interoperability, Mr. Rubin has twenty years of experience and ten years of health informatics experience. He spent seven years leading application architecture EA activities for the Veterans Health Administration, in addition to work he as done in for healthcare clients in the UK and Australia. Mr. Rubin is very active in the standards community, holding positions as co-chair of the OMG Healthcare Domain Task Force, the HL7 Service-Oriented Architecture Special Interest Group, the Healthcare Service Specification Project (HSSP). Additionally, Mr. Rubin serves as the Enterprise Architect and on the Board of Stewards for Open Health Tools, a community developing open-source healthcare middleware, and this month was the conference chair for "SOA in Healthcare" - an event co-sponsored by four not-for-profit standards and industry groups .

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