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 21, 2013
This is one in a series of blog posts to coincide with National Rural Health Day. To follow the conversation on Twitter, look for #RuralHealth.
Since the summer of 2010, ONC and HRSA’s Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP) have teamed up in support of rural health and rural economic development, with a focus on helping rural providers and hospitals leverage technology to optimize their communities’ health systems. Our goal is simple but not easy: improve care quality across the spectrum of care for rural communities.
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Leila Samy | September 26, 2013
Last year, we issued a nationwide challenge to see 1000 critical access hospitals (CAHs) and small, rural hospitals get to Meaningful Use by 2014. The call to action was met with support; we could feel everyone roll up their sleeves in unison.
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Leila Samy | September 20, 2013
This is one in a series of blog posts to coincide with National Health IT Week. To follow the conversation on Twitter, look for the #NHITweek hashtag.
During one of my regular visits over the phone with Ed Gamache, CEO of Harbor Beach Community Hospital, in Harbor Beach, MI, I learned a bit about how his critical access hospital is not only participating in the EHR program, but showcasing techniques to achieve desired results.
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Leila Samy | August 8, 2013
“Who else can provide healthcare in rural Mississippi besides these small rural hospitals? With so much responsibility and so few resources, they need all the help they can get,” said Jim Rice, RN, MBA, Health IT and Electronic Health Record Consultant at the Mississippi Health IT Regional Extension Center.
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Leila Samy | June 28, 2013
Earlier this month, the USDA Rural Development Iowa State Office, the Iowa Regional Health IT Extension Center (REC) and the Iowa State Office of Rural Health convened the first Iowa Rural Health IT Forum to launch a pilot project designed to expand funding for rural health IT infrastructure to support Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) and rural hospitals in Iowa. This workshop, planned to be held annually, targeted a group of Iowa CAHs and rural hospitals to help them coordinate funding and financing opportunities for rural health IT infrastructure that could help with the adoption of certified electronic health record (EHR) technology and associated system and facility improvements.
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