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.