ONC Names Mostashari National Coordinator for HIT

Last week, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services named Farzad Mostashari, MD, as the new National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, effective immediately. He replaces Dr. David Blumenthal, who is returning to Harvard University after leading Office for the past two years, the Department of Health and Human Services announced.

Trained at the Harvard School of Public Health and Yale Medical School, internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, Mostashari completed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Epidemic Intelligence Service.  Motashari joined the Office of the National Coordinator in July 2009, serving as deputy national coordinator for the office.  Before that he worked as an assistant commissioner for the Primary Care Information project at the New York City Department of Health & Mental Hygiene.  In that role, he helped adopt prevention-oriented HIT used by more than 1,500 providers in under served communities.

Motashari was among the first developers of real-time electronic disease surveillance systems and acted as lead investigator in the outbreaks of West Nile Virus and anthrax in New York City.  He is expected to continue Blumenthal's push for providers to adopt electronic health records in order to optimize care quality and enhance communication between multiple medical professionals.