Sankaran to exit Federal Health Architecture
Vish Sankaran, program director of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s Federal Health Architecture, is leaving the program within the next several weeks “to seek other opportunities.”
“This was not an easy decision, but it comes at an ideal time for FHA and for me, when FHA is reshaping to fit in with the overarching federal health IT body being formed,” Sankaran said via email. “This is also a great time to bring in new leadership to further the great work [we’ve] already accomplished.”
Sankaran joined the ONC shortly after it was created via Executive Order in 2004. The FHA was charged with building a nationwide electronic health information system. The result, CONNECT, is open-source software that enables exchange of health information across providers. CONNECT is one building block of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN), and was demonstrated at HIMSS10’s Interoperability Showcase in March.
Sankaran lauded the FHA program for creating “a template for how the public and private sectors could work together to set a new bar for health information exchange and to create an ‘ecosystem’ of buyers and sellers in the marketplace,” he said. “A great illustration of our collaboration is the CONNECT technology, which has been adopted by both government agencies and the private sector.”
“Most gratifying is that our program has received seven awards from organizations recognizing innovation in health IT,” he said.
Click here for CMIO's interview with Sankaran at HIMSS 2010.
“This was not an easy decision, but it comes at an ideal time for FHA and for me, when FHA is reshaping to fit in with the overarching federal health IT body being formed,” Sankaran said via email. “This is also a great time to bring in new leadership to further the great work [we’ve] already accomplished.”
Sankaran joined the ONC shortly after it was created via Executive Order in 2004. The FHA was charged with building a nationwide electronic health information system. The result, CONNECT, is open-source software that enables exchange of health information across providers. CONNECT is one building block of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN), and was demonstrated at HIMSS10’s Interoperability Showcase in March.
Sankaran lauded the FHA program for creating “a template for how the public and private sectors could work together to set a new bar for health information exchange and to create an ‘ecosystem’ of buyers and sellers in the marketplace,” he said. “A great illustration of our collaboration is the CONNECT technology, which has been adopted by both government agencies and the private sector.”
“Most gratifying is that our program has received seven awards from organizations recognizing innovation in health IT,” he said.
Click here for CMIO's interview with Sankaran at HIMSS 2010.