HITPC: DeSalvo explains why she said yes

In her second day on the job, new national coordinator for health IT, Karen DeSalvo, MD, MPH, MSc, addressed the Health IT Policy Committee about her career and why she accepted her new position.

Raised by a single parent in Austin, Texas, DeSalvo said she received her healthcare in public clinics which “are not as consumer friendly as I think a lot of us would like.” Her mother always made sure they had health insurance but fostered the idea of personal responsibility for their own care as well.

While attending college in Boston, DeSalvo worked in the state lab, gaining valuable experience. She worked in health clinics while attending medical school at Tulane University, seeing patients with conditions such as tertiary syphilis. "I realized that was a good learning opportunity but it’s not what we should see anywhere in the world let alone in the richest country.” People should not walk into clinics in the end stages of diseases that easily could have been prevented and treated.

DeSalvo was on a research career path when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. The catastrophic event killed about 1,800 people and “changed my life,” she said. Katrina also led to an unexpected opportunity for many people, sectors and institutions to rebuild the healthcare infrastructure of the region. All the healthcare institutions were closed so they had a “rich period of dialogue about the new framework for healthcare in Louisiana. Essential to that was the idea that the new system would be founded on primary care and prevention. Health information technology was essential to what we were thinking.” She said it was terrifying, as a doctor in the aftermath of the hurricane, to not know the location of her patients on HIV treatments, Coumadin, cancer regimens and other medications that require timely administration and quick follow-up care. “That was the impetus to have EHRs come into play and interoperability so patients’ information could follow them not just in a disaster but every day.”

DeSalvo said she already loves her new job. “There is great promise in health IT for delivery reform, clinical interface for health systems and populations and the community at large to come to fruition, make care more effective and valuable, see real improvements in health over time and do much more for people in disasters. That’s why I said yes” to the job.