Authors
Dr. Farzad Mostashari
Farzad Mostashari, MD, ScM served as National Coordinator for Health Information Technology within the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Farzad joined ONC in July 2009. Previously, he served at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene as Assistant Commissioner for the Primary Care Information Project, where he facilitated the adoption of prevention-oriented health information technology by over 1,500 providers in underserved communities. Dr. Mostashari also led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded NYC Center of Excellence in Public Health Informatics and an Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality funded project focused on quality measurement at the point of care. Prior to this he established the Bureau of Epidemiology Services at the NYC Department of Health, charged with providing epidemiologic and statistical expertise and data for decision making to the health department. He did his graduate training at the Harvard School of Public Health and Yale Medical School, internal medicine residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, and completed the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. He was one of the lead investigators in the outbreaks of West Nile Virus and anthrax in New York City, and among the first developers of real-time electronic disease surveillance systems nationwide.
Dr. Farzad Mostashari's Latest Blog Posts
Dr. Farzad Mostashari | March 30, 2012
Dr. Farzad Mostashari | March 26, 2012
Health IT plays a central role in building a 21st Century health care system—where care is safer, better coordinated, and patient-centered, where we pay for the right care, not just more care. Increasing the adoption and use of health IT is crucial, so we’ve set an ambitious goal for 2012: get 100,000 health care providers paid under the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record (EHR) Incentive Programs by year’s end. For us to succeed,
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Dr. Farzad Mostashari | March 6, 2012
Apparently, doctors who order a lot of imaging tests are more likely to have electronic systems that let them view those images in their offices.
That is the finding of an article appearing in the March 2012 issue of Health Affairs by McCormick and colleagues. This is not a particularly surprising observation. What is surprising is that the authors go far beyond the scope of their research to conclude that “the federal government’s ongoing,
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Dr. Farzad Mostashari | February 24, 2012
Substantial evidence shows that higher adoption of electronic health records (EHR) can save our health care system money, save time for doctors and hospitals, and save lives. Thanks to the Recovery Act and the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Program, we have seen great success and momentum as we’ve taken the first steps toward adoption of this critical technology: to date, more than 43,000 providers have received $3.1 billion to help make the transition to EHRs;
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Dr. Farzad Mostashari | February 17, 2012
The HITECH Act, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, put in place new incentives for doctors and hospitals to help them make the investment in electronic health records (EHRs). It also made a very important distinction: that health IT is not just about the technology, it’s how we use the technology to improve care. It has moved health care in a direction that isn’t just about more technology it’s about using that technology in a way that’s going to be meaningful to patients.
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