Dr. Brailer to step down

Dr David Brailer, the man charged by President Bush with ensuring that half of all Americans have a portable electronic health record within a decade, is to step down two years after taking on the job. Brailer said on Thursday he was leaving his job as national coordinator for health information technology for family reasons and because the program is moving in the right direction. Dr Brailer, who spent a year in the White House preparing the ground for the program before taking his current post, has commissioned a string of initiatives aimed at getting hospitals, doctors, health plans and IT vendors working together to deliver an initiative intended to improve the quality of care and potentially lower its cost. These range from setting standards for what a record should look like, ensuring they can be made to work together, tackling difficult issues around privacy, and creating a body independent of government that will evaluate progress over the next decade. He will stay on as vice-chair of a key advisory committee on the program, while also advising the White House on consumer issues.