> Judy Murphy, former vice president of electronic health record applications for Wisconsin-based Aurora Health Care, was named the new deputy national coordinator for programs and policy for the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, NextGov reports. She takes over for Farzad Mostashari, who left that role when he was tabbed to fill the National Coordinator for Health IT role vacated earlier this year by David Blumenthal. Article
> Michael Leavitt, the Secretary of Health and Human Services during the second term of President George W. Bush, expressed strong support for the Obama Administration's health IT incentive program during a keynote speech at CHIME's Fall CIO Forum this week in San Antonio. Responding to a question about how he would rate the program, Leavitt said, "I would have loved to have had $18 billion" for health IT when he ran the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS). FierceHealthIT
> Healthcare writer Greg Goth, in a commentary published this week in Government Health IT, takes issue with the current vision of Meaningful Use, writing that it's long and confusing when it could--and should--be much simpler. "The day a cancer patient's wife doesn't have to ask for a lab report to be faxed to her, so she can scan it, convert it to a commonly available format, and email it to another doctor, but can instead say, 'Can you e-mail a copy of that to Dr. X? And cc me on that?' is the day the healthcare industry will have truly achieved meaningful use. And not one day before." Commentary
And Finally... What is wrong with people? Article