David Blumenthal, MD, MPP serves as the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology under President Barack Obama. In this role he is charged with building an interoperable, private and secure nationwide health information system and supporting the widespread, meaningful use of health IT.
Dr. Blumenthal received his undergraduate, medical, and public policy degrees from Harvard University and completed his residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Prior to his appointment to the administration, Dr. Blumenthal was a practicing primary care physician; director, Institute for Health Policy; and the Samuel O. Thier Professor of Medicine and Professor of Health Policy at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners HealthCare System and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Blumenthal is a renowned health services researcher and national authority on health IT adoption. With his colleagues from Harvard Medical School, he authored the seminal studies on the adoption and use of health information technology in the United States. He is the author of over 200 scholarly publications, including most recently, "Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office," which tells the history of U.S. Presidents’ involvement in health reform, from FDR through George W. Bush.
A member of the Institute of Medicine and a former board member and national correspondent for the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Blumenthal has held several leadership positions in medicine, government, and academia including Senior Vice President at Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital; Executive Director of the Center for Health Policy and Management and Lecturer on Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government; and as a professional staff member on Senator Edward Kennedy's Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research.
He was the founding chairman of AcademyHealth and served previously on the boards of the University of Chicago Health System and of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. He is recipient of the Distinguished Investigator Award from AcademyHealth, and a Doctor of Humane Letters from Rush University.