Kathleen Sebelius Sworn in as HHS Secretary – Impact on EHR

I’m sure that most of you in healthcare saw that Kathleen Sebelius was finally sworn in as the new HHS secretary. You can read the reuters report on the confirmation and swearing in of Kathleen Sebelius.

From the report, there’s no doubt that a lot of Kathleen Sebelius’s first job will be to work on this swine flu. No doubt a very important thing for her to keep an eye on and do what she can to protect us from having a major outbreak.

However, I must admit that I get the feeling that were going to hear very little from this new HHS secretary about EMR and EHR. I could be wrong, but I just don’t see her getting really involved in all the discussions of EHR implementation and the $18 billion of EHR stimulus money as part of the HITECH Act (ARRA).

Certainly she’ll be around for major announcements, but I get the strong impression that it’s actually David Blumenthal that’s going to be in the trenches doing the work of defining “certified EHR” and “meaningful use.”

Anyone know more about the situation that can help clarify what might happen, who will be responsible and whether Kathleen Sebelius will do much for EMR as HHS secretary?

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

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