Hail to the Chief

President Obama last month appointed this country's first ever chief technology officer, Aneesh Chopra, whose role, in Obama's words, “will promote technological innovation to help achieve our most urgent priorities–from creating jobs and reducing healthcare costs to keeping our nation secure.” He seemingly is the big picture guy who will work with the government's CIO, Vivek Kundra, whose role apparently has more of an operations focus.

I found a couple of Web sites of the many that have reported and blogged on this pick reference a YouTube video of Chopra from the annual conference of the Congressional Internet Caucus, which led me to take a look (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfoBMNhjHU8). About halfway through, he talks about healthcare and about how during his wife's pregnancy he had to fill out insurance information time and again at her various health providers. While giving the nod to privacy issues, he said more needs to be done with health data to provide better health intervention, and he has worked toward this effort in his capacity as Virginia's secretary of technology. He also spoke of the need for federal and state synergy in setting standards for healthcare systems. Healthcare IT seems to be a big fan of his–according to Chopra's official bio on Virginia.gov, he was awarded the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's 2007 State Leadership Advocacy Award.

According to a White House press release, Chopra has led “the Commonwealth's strategy to effectively leverage technology in government reform, to promote Virginia's innovation agenda, and to foster technology-related economic development.” That said, the selection of Chopra seems to have garnered far more cheers than jeers across the Web.

With the soaring cost of healthcare and Chopra's background in healthcare technology, it's going to be interesting to see what changes are in store. The skeptic in me says government is notoriously slow when it comes to change. Chopra's track record in state government, however, appears to belie this attitude.

His remarks in the video about a state and federal synergy and standards (for more specifically on the progress of standards in insurance, see “Is the Cure Worse Than the Illness?” p. 24) got me thinking about whether this vision might be an indication of where Chopra would stand in the federal charter debate. Might he see a federal/state synergy there as well that technology could foster? From his presentation, he also is a proponent of transparency and performance metrics–where might that lead?

At this point, all is left to speculation. However, the mandate from the President is to enable innovation and innovative technologies. Hopefully, Chopra will be able to overcome bureaucratic obstacles to drive technology forward–and all of us along with it.

Sharon Schwartzman