Authors
Leila Samy
On behalf of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), @LeilaSamy leads White House Rural Council initiatives focused on rural health and Veteran health. She coordinates initiatives with Federal partners, including US Departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, Labor and Education as well as the Federal Communications Commission to identify and address challenges facing rural communities.
Leila Samy, MPH, is the Rural Health IT Coordinator at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), a position she has held since May 2012. Previously, Samy served as Special Assistant to the Deputy National Coordinator at ONC starting in 2010. Prior to that, she conducted evaluations of HHS programs at the HHS Office of Inspector General. Samy also worked at the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office on community development, and at UMASS Memorial Medical Center on quality and outcomes improvement. Samy is active on social media. She tweets @LeilaSamy and blogs for ONC’s Health IT Buzz Blog on rural topics.
Samy has a Master of Public Health with a focus in health policy and management from Emory University. She has Bachelor of Science (with a focus on Biology and Proteomics) and a Major in French Literature and Francophone studies from the University of Michigan.
Leila Samy's Latest Blog Posts
Leila Samy | November 19, 2015
Today we celebrate the work of rural communities around the country that are working with ONC to bring health IT innovation into their practices, including initiatives that 1) help rural and poor communities locate financing and facilitate broadband connectivity to support health information exchange and telehealth infrastructure and 2) leverage health IT and Blue Button to improve care coordination for rural Veterans who seek care both within the VA and their local community providers.
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Leila Samy | November 21, 2014
More than $20 million in U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) grants were announced by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack November 20, 2014 to support projects all across the country.
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Leila Samy | July 8, 2014
Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), some with a census of fewer than 10 patients, are the smallest of the small rural hospitals. In some regions, such as frontier areas, a CAH may be the only local health care provider serving an area the width of the state of Rhode Island! CAHs are small, geographically isolated and have limited resources.
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Leila Samy | March 28, 2014
A 65-year-old veteran living in a rural community presents at his local Critical Access Hospital (CAH) with symptoms of pneumonia. After evaluating the patient, the physician discharges him with a prescription for antibiotics. What the physician doesn’t know is that his US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) providers had prescribed warfarin (a blood thinner) to help prevent harmful blood clots that may cause a stroke. Yet certain antibiotics, when combined with warfarin, can lead to an adverse drug reaction that could include bleeding or interfere with the protection the anticoagulant (blood thinner) provides,
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Leila Samy | March 26, 2014
The latest round in a White House Rural Council initiative to link rural doctors and hospitals with financing they need to adopt Health IT, such as electronic health records, kicks off today in Tennessee. The program focuses on the poorest counties in Tennessee and is part of a broader initiative that generated over $70 Million in funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and other partners for rural hospitals and clinics in 2012 and 2013.
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