Hoping to garner deeper insights, FDA hires data officer
The Food and Drug Administration plans to hire a data officer as part of its 2016 strategy to improve its internal IT systems.
The agency will connect its testing laboratories and field offices to allow inspectors and researchers to communicate freely and make use of agency data, Todd Simpson, CIO of the FDA, said in a Bloomberg report.
Simpson said the organization has been wrestling with disjointed IT networks that don't efficiently communicate with one another, which complicates the processes of analyzing data for insights.
The agency also plans to hire a chief data officer to oversee changes to how the agency uses the information it collects in testing food, drugs and medical devices, Simpson said.
Hiring a data officer would ensure someone oversees the changes to the administration's IT infrastructure, enabling its data to be put to better use, Simpson told Bloomberg.
“We're a big data shop and data governance is obviously very important to us,” he said. “We believe it's key.”
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.