National Coordinator for Health IT Karen DeSalvo is just a Senate confirmation away from officially joining the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as its new assistant secretary for health, President Barack Obama announced Wednesday. DeSalvo is no stranger to HHS, serving as its acting assistant secretary for health amid the recent Ebola crisis, a role she filled while still holding her position at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). DeSalvo, who joined ONC in January 2014, will continue to fulfill her duties as head of the agency until she is officially confirmed in her new position, at which point she will step down. In her lead role at ONC, DeSalvo helped get struggling programs such as Meaningful Use back on track, Russell Branzell, president and CEO of the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, told FierceHealthIT. "There's still some programs that need to be worked on and fixed, but she's worked very hard to be collaborative and very community-driven as far as being involved with the industry with the people that are truly on the forefront," he said. Read the full report at FierceHealthIT