Dr. Farzad Mostashari will step down this fall as head of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at HHS, where he's had a big hand in guiding federal health IT policy for the past four years, including the challenging rollout of meaningful-use rules for electronic health-record systems.
The announcement came in an e-mail to staff from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Mostashari, who has a background in public health, is the fourth ONC chief since the position was created by an executive order of President George W. Bush in April 2004. He has been with the ONC since July 2009, when he joined as deputy national coordinator after serving as New York City's assistant health commissioner in charge of a health IT extension program for 1,500 healthcare providers in underserved communities. He was named to the top job at ONC in April 2011, succeeding Dr. David Blumenthal.
Mostashari confirmed an early report of the announcement on Twitter with a post, "It's true," but declined otherwise to comment.
Under Mostashari's watch at the ONC, "meaningful use" became common parlance in the healthcare industry, referring to criteria for qualification in the federal electronic health record incentive-payment program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The program has thus far doled out $15.5 billion to hospitals, office-based physicians and other eligible professionals. More than 80% of hospitals and 58% of physicians and other professionals have received payments under the program for adopting, implementing, upgrading or meaningfully using a federally certified EHR system.
Reactions from Mostashari's peers in the physician informatics community combined gratitude and concern about the future of the federal HIT program.
Each of Mostashari's three predecessors at ONC brought unique combinations of skills to the job, and Mostashari was no exception, according to Bria.
Fickenscher said he's thankful that Mostashari is announcing his departure in advance, giving the ONC and the industry time for a smooth transition, which also occurred with previous ONC leaders.
Like Halamka, Dr. Paul Tang, chief innovation and technology officer at the Palo Alto (Calif.) Medical Foundation, has worked with Mostashari at close quarters, serving as vice chairman of the federal HIT Policy Committee, which Mostashari chairs. Tang chairs the HIT Policy Committee's meaningful use workgroup. Both panels advise the ONC.
In a March 4 video interview at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society convention in New Orleans, Mostashari was asked about his tenure.
"I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing, as long as I'm having fun, and I'm having a lot of fun," Mostashari said.
Mostashari has not announced his plans after leaving ONC service.