The Office of the National Coordinator is looking for a new certification director, at perhaps the most critical point in the evolution of the federal health IT incentive program. The new deputy would assume the post just as rulemaking and certification work starts for the third phase of the meaningful use program.
The new deputy national coordinator for programs and policies in the ONC's Office of Certification will succeed Carol Bean, who recently left to work at Stanford University Medical School’s biomedical informatics research department,
The Department of Health and Human Services posted the job announcement seeking candidates outside the agency concurrently with a call for applicants from inside the agency who are eligible for merit promotion.
Regardless of who takes the job, overseeing the certification program for MU Stage 3 will be a vast endeavor, managing what’s likely to be the most ambitious and complex part of the EHR incentive program to date.
Reporting to the deputy national coordinator for policies and programs, Judy Murphy, the leader of the certification office will be overseeing EHR certification criteria that’s performed by four certifying bodies, working “across the public and private sectors to foster a standards-based data architecture that maximizes interoperable health data by providing actionable, integrated data,” as the HHS job post states.
[See also: ONC chief's early years inform her work.]
That includes “gathering requirements, identifying appropriate standards and fostering implementation level guidance and conformance testing,” “resolving conflicts among organizations,” and ensuring that “standards are properly integrated and implemented.”
The position is a federal grade 15 payment level, with an annual salary ranging from $124,000 to $157,000, and applicants need to have one year of specialized experience equivalent to grade level 14 as well as experience working in or managing integrated health data, standards-based data architecture and interoperability.
Another key part of the job is handling provider complaints, as Bean, the ONC’s former certification director, wrote last summer before heading to Stanford.
[See also: Rethinking certification.]
“We want to be clear,” Bean wrote in a blog post with program analyst Asara Clark, “the Office of Certification’s role doesn’t stop after EHR certification. We are also going to monitor certified EHRs to determine whether they continue to meet our requirements. The doctors, hospitals and other providers that are adopting – and have already adopted – EHRs deserve this and should feel confident that the tools they are using are up to the job of helping their patients get the best care possible. If they don’t, we want to hear about it.”
