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July 9, 2010

pkaufman

DrFirst Welcomes Don Berwick as the New Administrator for CMS

President Obama recently appointed Don Berwick to head CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services).  Dr. Berwick has been a primary mover for quality in healthcare for over 25 years! As President and CEO of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), he championed the “100K Lives Campaign” saying “Some is not a number, soon is not a time” in his effort to save lives by improving quality in health care. We at DrFirst strongly believe that improved quality in health care will save lives, and that the use of healthcare IT such as e-prescribing and secure communication among healthcare providers are two important ways to achieve that goal. In a future blog, I’ll describe some of the specific efforts we’re taking at DrFirst to improve the quality of care our users are able to achieve through the use of our products.
Dr. Berwick’s home page: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/donald-berwick/index.html


About pkaufman

Schooled at MIT, Dr. Kaufman nurtured a strong interest in medical informatics while a Bowman Gray School of Medicine faculty member. After entering private practice he founded PiNK software in 1996 to produce EMR software, later becoming DrFirst’s chief medical officer upon its founding. He lectures nationally on various healthcare IT topics, and as a board certified gastroenterologist, he continues a limited clinical practice. Dr. Kaufman is a member of the Health IT Standards Committee, Privacy and Security Workgroup for ONC (Office of the National Coordinator for Healthcare Information Technology). Representing the American Gastroenterology Association’s (AGA), Dr. Kaufman is a delegate to the AMA and was the co-chair of the Physicians Electronic Health Record Consortium (PEHRC). He has participated on workgroups at CCHIT (stand-alone e-prescribing), HIMSS (e-prescribing), and NCPDP (e-prescribing).