announcement - july 2009

Jamie Ferguson Becomes Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy Fellow

I am pleased to announce the appointment of Jamie Ferguson as a Fellow with the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy.  Jamie is executive director of health information technology strategy and policy for Kaiser Permanente.  In that capacity, he is responsible for health IT informatics standards, developing Kaiser Permanente’s health IT priorities and policies, and government and industry relations for IT.

Jamie was recently appointed by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to a 3-year term with the HHS Health IT Standards Committee, the group charged with developing operational definitions of “meaningful use” of technology by health providers to be eligible for subsidies under the recently enacted stimulus bill.  Jamie chairs that committee’s Clinical Operations Workgroup.  He also serves on the Technical Board of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN) and a number of other advisory bodies focusing on standards development.

Jamie’s expertise in health IT policy issues is supplemented by an intriguing career path.  He was a research investigator in the Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University School of Medicine, an economist in the Federal Reserve System under chairman Paul Volcker, and chief information officer (CIO) of Finance and Treasury Division at Bank of America.

We look forward to working with Jamie in the coming years.

- Murray Ross, PhD, Vice President, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, and Director, KP IHP