I interrupt all my work bring two important announcements for those who haven't heard. First, news from the AAP national:

AAP Appoints Founding Medical Director of their Child Health Informatics Center (CHIC)
I am pleased to announce that Christoph U. Lehmann, MD, has been appointed the founding Medical Director of the American Academy of Pediatrics Child Health Informatics Center (CHIC).  The Center, created by the AAP Board of Directors in October, 2009, is charged with developing HIT Infrastructure and leadership in Child Health Informatics and related advocacy, supporting pediatricians in implementation and use of electronic health records, and contributing to the development of model HIT systems for child health care delivery.  As CHIC Medical Director, Dr. Lehmann will coordinate AAP staff HIT activities and will collaborate with the Council on Clinical Information Technology and other key AAP stakeholders to develop and advocate for key elements of pediatric health care information technology, and to support AAP quality measurement and comparative effectiveness priorities.

 

Dr. Lehmann is a neonatologist and is Director of Clinical Information Technology and Associate Professor of Pediatrics & Health Sciences Informatics at Johns Hopkins University.  He has served as education chair for COCIT, on several AMIA committees, and is one of the editors of eNeonatal Review and a founder of Dermatlas.  Dr. Lehmann's interest and research have focused on issues related to computer assisted medical education as well as improving safety through medical informatics applications that reduce provider error.

 

I would like to thank all of you who provided comments and suggestions during the recruitment and review process, and I hope you will all join me in welcoming Chris to this new challenge. A formal announcement will follow.

Jon

Jonathan D. Klein, MD, MPH
Associate Executive Director and Director, Julius B. Richmond Center
American Academy of Pediatrics

I am fascinated by this.  The AAP is finally stepping up to their I/T needs and this bodes well.  I haven't met Dr. Lehmann, but everyone assures me that he's a great guy.  We'll let him know if he's not :-)

More importantly, I suspect, to the people who read my blog, there is this news:

Congratulations to the winners of the 2010 SOAPM Election. The results are as follows:

Chairperson: Jill Stoller, MD, FAAP
Executive Committee Member: Herschel Lessin, MD, FAAP
Executive Committee Member: Budd Shenkin, MD, FAAP

Whoohoo! As you can imagine, I am delighted all around by these results. I have the utmost respect for Drs. Lessin and Shenkin and to have another PCC client at the helm of SOAPM?  What a dream!

I don't know when his term ends, officially, but I'd like to personally and formally thank and recognize Dr. Lander for the work he has done as SOAPM chair.  I can honestly say that more change has happened at the practice management level within the AAP during his chairmanship than in the nearly 20 years before it.  It's a big boat to steer, but I see it starting to head in the right direction.  Thank you.