David Blumenthal is an academic physician and health care policy expert, best known as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the period 2009-2011 during early implementation of the HITECH Acting provisions on "meaningful use".
Background
Blumenthal was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jane M. (née Rosenstock) and Martin A. Blumenthal, who was the president of a commodities trading firm. His mother was born in Omaha, Nebraska, to a Jewish family that originated in Prussia and Baden, and his father was a Jewish immigrant from Frankfurt, Germany.
Education
Bachelor, Harvard University, 1970;
Doctor of Medicine, Harvard University, 1975;
Master in Public Policy, Kennedy School Government, Boston, 1975.
Career
Foreign the professional basketball player originally known as David Bluthenthal, see David Blu. Blumenthal received his Bachelor of Arts from Harvard in 1970, then remained at Harvard for his Doctor of Medicine (1975) and master"s degree in public policy (1975). His internship and residency was at Massachusetts General Hospital from 1975-1980.
Blumenthal was associate physician at Brigham and Women"s Hospital, Boston (1987-1991).
Then associate physician at Massachusetts General Hospital from 1991, promoted to physician in 1997. Blumenthal was a lecturer of health policy at the Kennedy School of Government from 1980 to 1987.
He was instructor, then professor, of medicine, social medicine and health policy, and of health care policy at the Harvard Medical School from 1980, and also a lecturer on health services, health policy and management at the Harvard School of Public Health from 1983. Blumenthal was a professional staff member to the United States. Senate Committee on Human Resources health and scientific research subcommittee in 1977-1979.
He became chief of the Health Policy Research and Development Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in 1991, and director of the Institute for Health Policy for the Massachusetts General Hospital and Partners HealthCare System in 1988.
From 2002, he was national correspondent for the New England Journal of Medicine. During the United States. presidential campaign in 1987-1988, Blumenthal was chief health advisor to the Dukakis campaign. Twenty years later, in 2008, he was senior health adviser to the Obama campaign.
On March 20, 2009, President Obama appointed Blumenthal to be the National Health Information Technology Coordinator, just a month after the enactment of a federal stimulus package that included about $19 billion in incentives, through Medicare and Medicaid, for the adoption of electronic health records.
Blumenthal"s charge was to set enabling policy for a nationwide health information system and to support widespread meaningful use of health information technology. By many reports he succeeded in putting in place one of the largest publicly funded infrastructure investments the United States. ever made in such a short time period, whether in health care or any other field
In 2010, he was named by Modern Healthcare as the most influential physician executive in the United States.
In 2012, Blumenthal was named as president of the Commonwealth Fund.
Achievements
Membership
Chairman Massachusetts Peer Review Organisation, Waltham, since 1997.
Connections
Married ellen G. Blumenthal, August 9, 1970. Children: Daniel, Karen.