Health IT crowd adds to Mostashari praise

"It's a good pick, but I'd go forward and say it's the right pick and the best pick,” said Dr. Peter Basch, medical director for electronic health records and health IT policy at MedStar Health, Columbia, Md., and a volunteer adviser to ONC, serving on three work groups of the federally chartered Health IT Policy Committee. Basch said all three previous ONC leaders have been the right men for the job at that time and that this is the time for a leader who can implement programs...

..."Farzad's combination of policy knowledge, familiarity with the needs of small providers and passion for improving health with IT tools will serve the country well," Halamka said. "From personal experience, I know that his vision for creating decision-support systems and data-driven quality improvement resulted in improvements to several EHR products and innovations," he added, citing the ONC's open-source PopHealth project to help automate the reporting of clinical quality measures as one example.