Chair

  • Jacki Monson, JD

    Vice President, Chief Technology Risk Officer, Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Privacy Officer
    Sutter Health
    2200 River Plaza Drive
    Sacramento, CA 95833

    Jacki Monson has extensive expertise in health care privacy and security law and compliance. For the past four years, she has been serving as the Vice President, Chief Privacy and Information Security Officer at Sutter Health in Sacramento, California where she administers and manages privacy and information security programs for Sutter Health and its affiliates. She provides advice and education to programs and constituents about HIPAA, HITECH and other information security and privacy laws and regulations. She also manages and oversees the privacy monitoring and audit program, cyber security operations and incident response. She was previously the Chief Privacy Officer at Sutter Health for three years prior to her appointment over security and privacy programs. Prior to her position at Sutter, she served as Chief Privacy Officer at the Mayo Clinic where she assessed privacy program gaps and created plans to implement procedures and policies to mitigate or eliminate risk for the Mayo Clinic enterprise. As Privacy Compliance Specialist at Prime Therapeutics, LLC, she provided advice on legal aspects of Privacy and Information Security including HIPAA Security and NIST. She was appointed to the HHS Cyber Security Taskforce (March 2016-July 2017), and testified at the May 2016 NCVHS Privacy Hearing on de­identification of protected health information.

    She also is an expert on privacy and security by design, privacy and security impact assessments, managing and operating privacy and security programs for large integrated health systems, privacy and security concerns with patient portal, privacy and security with social media and cyber security. She brings vital real-world experience to the Committee’s work.

    Ms. Monson is a widely recognized expert in the health industry and has presented keynote briefings at industry conferences such as HIPAA Summits, American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), Healthcare Compliance Association (HCCA) and the Health Information Management System Society (HIMSS) on topics involving compliance, privacy, information security and emerging privacy and security challenges.

    She received her Juris Doctor from the Mitchell Hamline School of Law, St. Paul, MN. Her certifications include Healthcare Compliance, Privacy, Health Law and Information Security. Her publications include “Privacy by Design: the Next Generation of Privacy” (2016), HIPAA Security Risks with Mobile Devices and many features on cyber security. She was recognized by Becker Hospital in 2018 and 2019 for top 20 Chief Information Security Officers in healthcare. She has served as a member of NCVHS since 2017 and is an active member of the Subcommittee on Privacy, Confidentiality and Security.

Membership

  • Tammy Feenstra Banks, MBA, FACMPE
    Gobles, MI 49055

    Tammy Feenstra Banks’ professional experience spans over 25 years in health-oriented organizations including a large nonprofit Medical Association, a large health system, and a Fortune 500 managed healthcare and insurance company. She has devoted her career leading multi-stakeholder collaborations to align incentives to solve healthcare’s administrative and clinical workflow challenges in both the private and public sectors to positively impact all stakeholders.

    Currently, Ms. Banks is the Principal/Consultant for ImpactQue LLC, a consulting firm working with start-ups, medical associations and thought leaders. She previously served as the Vice President Medicare Strategy, Value Based Care Programs at Providence St. Joseph Health. Through the identification of key regulatory opportunities for growth and operational performance, she developed and implemented Medicare Value Based Care strategy, program management, and technical advocacy across the system.

    Prior to Providence, she served as Vice President, Industry Relations Claims and Payments within Optum 360 and Vice President Interoperability Program Development (Healthcare Simplification) within Optum. She provided internal business leadership and industry advocacy to advance administrative and clinical data interoperability with the goal to make healthcare more automated, affordable, and patient centered. She also built supportive coalitions and successfully championed the addition of enhanced messaging within future administrative standards.

    Prior to Optum, she served in three medical associations, including 11 years with the American Medical Association Private Sector Advocacy unit. During her leadership, error rates for private health insurers on paid medical claims dropped from 19.3 percent in 2011 to 9.5 percent in 2012, resulting in an estimated $8 billion in health system savings due to a reduction in unnecessary administrative work to reconcile errors through the “Heal the claims process™” National Health Insurer Report Card campaign. The campaign aimed to reduce physician practice administrative costs to 1% of practice revenue vs. the current 10–14% expense. She also successfully championed the capability for payers to increase transparency of entities performing traditional health plan roles on future eligibility and claims remittance advice standard transactions. This included the identification of the specific fee schedule for the patient.

    She holds a master’s degree in business with a quantitative emphasis from Roosevelt University and a bachelor’s degree in business from Alma College. She earned the Fellow, American College of Medical Practice (FACMPE) designation, earned the Certified Coding Specialist-Physician-based (CCS-P) designation from the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), and has been nationally recognized for her volunteer leadership contributions by the HHS Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI), Cooperative Exchange (CE), and the Healthcare Administrative Technology Association (HATA). Ms. Feenstra Banks was appointed to the Committee in 2020 and serves on the Subcommittee on Standards.

  • Denise Chrysler, JD
    Director, Mid-States Region
    Network for Public Health Law
    University of Michigan School of Public Health
    1415 Washington Heights
    Ann Arbor, MI 48109

    Ms. Chrysler is Director, Mid-States Region of the Network for Public Health Law at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. She has significant background in public health law with specific expertise regarding collection, sharing, and protection of health and personal information. Currently, she co-chairs the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) Public Health Law Subcommittee, which focuses on collection and use of data for public health surveillance, investigation, and intervention. She served on the Legal and Regulatory Workgroup for the Digital Bridge, which is a public-private partnership working to ensure the health of our nation by establishing effective bidirectional data exchange between health care and public health. For almost two years, she served as a legal consultant to CDC to assist with development of a legal framework to expand data sharing capacity for Patient Centered Patient Outcomes Research (PCOR).

    Ms. Chrysler received the 2019 Roy J. Manty Distinguished Service Award for her contributions to public health in Michigan. She has served on her local board of health for eight years. In 2017, Ms. Chrysler was appointed by Michigan’s governor to serve on the Michigan Public Health Advisory Council, which was created by Executive Order after the Flint water crisis, to advise the Governor to improve the structure of Michigan’s public health system and address current and emerging public health issues. Ms. Chrysler leads trainings for public health practitioners, to support and empower local public health agencies in using their powers to protect the public from disease and environmental hazards.

    Prior to joining the Network for Public Health Law, Ms. Chrysler was employed by the State of Michigan. As a state attorney, Ms. Chrysler served on the State Health Department’s Steering Committee and Privacy and Security subcommittee to develop health information exchange, and was the lead author of the legal sections of Michigan’s e-Health Initiative Conduit to Care Report. For over 27 years, she provided legal services to the state health department regarding public health powers, programs, and services – serving as the public health legal director, the director of the Office of Legal Affairs, the department’s Chief Privacy Officer, the regulatory affairs officer, the Freedom of Information Act coordinator, a member of the department’s Institutional Review Board, and as an assistant attorney general. Ms. Chrysler earned a JD from the University of Michigan Law School. Ms. Chrysler was appointed to the Committee in 2020 and serves on the Subcommittee on Privacy, Confidentiality and Security.

  • Jamie Ferguson
    VP, Health IT Strategy & Policy
    Kaiser Permanente
    Anacortes, WA 98221

    Jamie Ferguson is Vice President of Health Information Technology (IT) Strategy and Policy at Kaiser Permanente and a fellow of its Institute for Health Policy. He is responsible for Kaiser Permanente health IT informatics standards, priorities, and policies, and government and industry relations. Prior to these assignments, Mr. Ferguson was responsible for information strategy and managed the data systems for Kaiser Permanente’s clinical and administrative operations as executive director of Information Management.

    Mr. Ferguson has served on numerous government advisory groups and health IT organizations, including the HHS Health IT Policy Committee and ONC’s Health IT Standards Committee, for which he chaired its Clinical Operations and Vocabulary subcommittees. He is the Kaiser Foundation Hospitals’ legal entity-appointed representative (LEAR) to the European Commission (EC) for research projects supporting the US-EU Memorandum of Understanding between HHS and the EC. Most recently he has been active in private organizations including the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Board of Directors, World Economic Forum (WEF) initiatives and committees, the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI) Board of Directors, the Sequoia Project Board of Directors, the Health Level Seven International (HL7) Board of Directors and committees, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) project and technical committees.  He is the immediate past Chair of the SNOMED International Management Board as well as its Convergent Medical Terminology (CMT) steering committee.

    Mr. Ferguson earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale University and completed graduate coursework in Computer Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  He was appointed to the Committee in 2020 and serves on the Subcommittee on Standards.

  • Melissa M. Goldstein, JD
    Associate Professor
    Department of Health Policy and Management
    Milken Institute School of Public Health
    The George Washington University
    950 New Hampshire Ave. NW, Second Floor
    Washington, DC 20052

    Melissa M. Goldstein, JD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University, where she teaches courses in bioethics (including genomics, privacy, reproductive ethics, end-of-life, and research ethics issues), health information technology policy, and public health law and conducts research on health information privacy and the legal and policy aspects of health information technology. Professor Goldstein serves as a member of GW’s IRB, the GWU hospital ethics committee, and the GWU living donor advocacy committee, and speaks frequently on issues in bioethics, health policy, research ethics, health information privacy, and health information technology. Professor Goldstein’s recent research and writings have focused on privacy and security issues in health information exchange and the use of big data, as well as the effects of health information technology on the physician-patient relationship and patient engagement. During the 2010-2011 academic year, Professor Goldstein served as a senior advisor to the Chief Privacy Officer in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2015-2016, Professor Goldstein served in a one-year IPA appointment as the Assistant Director for Bioethics and Privacy in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

    A native of Florence, Alabama, Professor Goldstein graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Virginia, received her law degree from Yale Law School, and completed two federal judicial clerkships and a post-doctoral fellowship in bioethics and health policy at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities. Professor Goldstein has recently addressed audiences including the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Forum on Aging, Disability, and Independence; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; the American Society for Law, Medicine, and Ethics (ASLME) Health Law Professors Conference; and the Science and Technology Advisory Panel (STAP) to the UN Global Environment Facility (GEF). In addition, Professor Goldstein currently serves as an advisory board member of the Susan G. Komen Big Data for Patients (BD4P) Planning and the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF). She was appointed to NCVHS in 2020 and serves on the Subcommittee on Privacy, Confidentiality and Security.

  • Richard W. Landen, MBA, MPH
    Bonita Springs, FL

    Rich Landen’s career spans numerous roles in the U.S. health care delivery and payment ecosystem. Now retired, he began from the ground up as a hospital orderly in Denver, Colorado, leveraging that experience into dual master’s degrees at Columbia University with a concentration in hospital administration. After almost a decade of hospital operations experience in a New York City teaching hospital, he joined a national health insurance trade association where he specialized in industry claims standards – initially paper-based – subsequently evolving into today’s HIPAA standards. Mr. Landen was a member of the National Uniform Claims Committee (NUCC), the National Uniform Billing Committee (NUBC) and the Dental Content Committee (DCC). In 1988 he began participating with the ANSI-accredited standards committee X12 and was one of the architects of the original 837 health care claim transaction. At X12, he held numerous leadership positions on the Insurance Subcommittee and its Health Care Task Group. Later, he worked at CAQH/CORE (Committee on Operating Rules for Information Exchange).

    During his career, Mr. Landen has been a board member of the ANSI Health Information Technology Standards Panel (HITSP), the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI), the National HealthCare Anti-fraud Association (NHCAA), the Colorado Community Health Management Information System (CHMIS), New York City Emergency Services System Advisory Board and board chair and volunteer first responder with the Sunshine (Colorado) Fire Protection District. He was a member of the Workgroup for Computerized Patient Records and the Markle Foundation Consumer Access Work Group.

    After passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA/HITECH), Mr. Landen became Director of Regulatory Affairs for a U.S. and Canadian clinical software developer, with primary responsibility for the U.S. Meaningful Use (now Promoting Interoperability) program. He was active with the HIMSS Electronic Health Record Association (EHRA) where he chaired the Patient Safety Work Group; and he participated on the Pew Charitable Trust’s initiatives on Health Information Technology Safety. Mr. Landen was appointed to NCVHS in September 2015 and re-appointed in 2019. He currently serves as Co-chair of the Subcommittee on Standards and serves on the Executive Subcommittee.

  • Denise Love, BSN, MBA
    Sandy, UT 84094

    Ms. Love is the former Executive Director of the National Association of Health Data Organizations (NAHDO), a national non-profit and educational association dedicated to the public availability and uniformity of health care data. Currently, as a consultant to NAHDO for special projects, she continues to advocate for the advancement of standardized statewide health data reporting systems to support health care price and quality transparency.

    Previous positions included clinical and public health nursing and managed care quality/utilization management. In 1991, she was appointed as the Executive Secretary of the Utah Health Data Committee, a statutory committee, appointed by the Utah Governor. She oversaw the implementation of mandatory reporting systems to support research, policy, and public use. Her team developed the nation’s first public interactive Internet query system for public use. This was a precursor to the current Utah Internet Based Indicator System (IBIS) which has been adopted by several other states.

    Ms. Love is a cofounder of the All-Payer Claims Database (APCD) Council and served as Co-leader of the APCD Council’s Learning Network from 2007-2019. APCD systems include medical, dental, pharmacy claims and other administrative data (provider and patient eligibility) from commercial and public payers in a state. In this capacity, she and the Council team provided technical assistance to states developing APCD reporting systems, guiding all aspects of successful implementation. Between 2005 and 2019, the number of states with active APCD systems grew from three to over twenty.

    Ms. Loved served on the NAHDO Board of Directors between 1994-1999, serving as Chair of the Annual Program Committee and the Board 1998-1999. Previous appointments included various positions in the National Quality Forum (NQF) including Vice-Chair of the Public-Community Health Council (2007-2009), the Care Coordination and Care Transitions Steering Committee (2011-2012) and the NQF Consensus Standards for Reporting of Healthcare-associated Infection Data (2006-2007). Ms. Love was appointed to the Panel on HHS Collection of Race and Ethnicity Data, Committee on National Statistics, National Research Council of the National Academies of Sciences (2002-2004) and the Health Research and Educational Trust’s Eliminating Disparities Advisory Committee (2004-2005). She received her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from St. Mark’s/Westminster School of Nursing and a Master of Business Administration degree from Westminster College’s Gore School of Business. Ms. Love was appointed to the Committee in 2015 and serves on the Subcommittee on Standards. In 2019, she was appointed for a second term.

  • Vickie M. Mays, PhD, MSPH
    Professor and Director
    UCLA Department of Psychology & Health Services
    405 Hilgard Avenue
    1285 Franz Hall, Box 951563
    Los Angeles, CA 90095-1563

    Professor Mays, a clinical psychologist by training, is a Distinguished Professor and the Director of the UCLA Center on Bridging Research Innovation, Training, and Education for Minority Health Disparities Solutions. She teaches courses on health status and health behaviors of racial and ethnic minority groups, research ethics in biomedical and behavioral research in racial/ethnic minority populations, research methods in minority research, as well as courses on social determinants of mental disorders and psychopathology. She holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology and an MSPH in Health Services and Health Policy, with postdoctoral training in psychiatric epidemiology and survey research as it applies to ethnic minorities (University of Michigan) and health policy (RAND). While at UCLA Professor Mays has held a number of management positions. In addition to being a 14-year Center Director, she served as the Chair for the Faculty Senate, as an Assistant Vice Chancellor for Research where she created a Research in Diversity and Equity (RIDE) small grants programs to examine campus climate with over a quarter of a million-dollar portfolio, served as a Vice Chair of the IRB and has served as a Chair of a number of boards and committees.

    Professor Mays’ research primarily focuses on the mental and physical health disparities affecting racial and ethnic minority populations. She is particularly known for her research on the impact of race-based discrimination in mental and physical health outcomes. She has a long history of funding not just for her disparity Center but for her research in mental health services, mental health policy and mental health in integrated care. Her latest funding at NIMH is focused on the development of algorithms in the integrated care setting for suicide prevention using machine learning approaches. In addition to her Co-PI status on a statewide psychiatric epidemiology three wave study of examining availability, access and quality of mental health services for racial, ethnic and sexual minorities she has also written about the mental health system of China As the designer of apps for smoking cessation and a trainer for mhealth she is interested in the use of technology in health care interventions. She has expertise in disaster response, recovery and resiliency. She is a certified emergency response team member with the Los Angeles Fire Department, worked five years funded by the Kellogg Foundation to help rebuild and respond to the mental health needs after Katrina in New Orleans, help to create and evaluate a mental health telethon in partnership with the local PBS station after the Los Angeles Civil Disturbance following the Rodney King event.

    Dr. Mays is a Fellow in the American College of Epidemiology and the American Psychological Sciences. She has served on boards and committees also in the American Psychological Association, the American Public Health Association and on boards and committees of the National Academy of Medicine. She has served HHS in a number of capacities including serving on and as the Chair of the Panel of Minority Women Health Experts. She has provided testimony to several Congressional Committees on her research findings related to HIV, mental health and health disparities, and her research on discrimination has been cited in Supreme Court briefs. She has received numerous awards including one for her lifetime research on women and HIV from AMFAR, a Women and Leadership Award, Distinguished Contribution for Research in Public Policy and Distinguished Contributions for Research from the American Psychological Association, and many honors and awards for her distinguished contributions to scientific research. She recently received UCLA’s Award for Lifetime Contributions to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in her teaching, research and service.

    Dr. Mays was appointed to the Committee by the Department in 2000 and served as chair of the Subcommittee on Populations during her four-year tenure. In 2010 she was appointed by Congress (House) for an additional four-year term, and chaired the NCVHS Ad Hoc Workgroup on Data Access and Use. She was reappointed in 2014 and 2019. Dr. Mays serves on the Executive Subcommittee, Subcommittee on Population Health, Subcommittee on Privacy, Confidentiality and Security, and the Ad Hoc Review of ACA for the Standards Subcommittee.

  • Margaret A. Skurka, MS, RHIA, CCS, FAHIMA
    Chancellor’s Professor and Professor Emeritus
    College of Health and Human Service
    Indiana University Northwest
    and
    Principal, MAS, Inc
    Frankfort, IL 60423

    Professor Margaret A. Skurka is a nationally recognized consultant in Health Information Management, specifically in the area of coding and classification. She provides consulting services to hospitals, healthcare facilities, ambulatory surgery centers and physician practices nationwide. Her expertise includes a lifetime in the standards area, specifically coding and classification, ICD-10-CM, CPT, clinical documentation improvement for physicians and hospitals, practice management, and reimbursement. She is a Professor Emeritus at Indiana University where she served 40 years in the Department of Health and Human Services, Indiana University School of Medicine as Director of the Department of Health Information Management.

    Ms. Skurka served as an officer of the International Health Information Management Association (IFHIMA) for a 9-year term, including 3 years as President Elect, 3 years as President, and 3 years as Past President. She was appointed to the World Health Association’s Family of International Classification Systems (WHO-FIC) for the past 15 years. She has a seat on the WHO- FIC with voice and vote, representing the international HIM association. She also has had a seat on the WHO’s Morbidity Reference Group (MbRG) for the past 6 years, with voice and vote, and the same representation. She served a six-year term on the Executive Board of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), first as a Director. She then was elected to the Presidency for a 3 year term—President Elect for 1 year, national President the following year, and subsequently was the Past President in year three during which time the organization had 40,000+ members. Through the years she also served at the state level including as President of the Indiana Health Information Management Association and many years of board service.

    Ms. Skurka is the editor of the text, “Health Information Management: Principles and Organization for Health Information Services,” now in its 6th edition. The most recent edition was published in 2017. Ms. Skurka earned an MS from Purdue University and holds a BS from the University of Illinois. Ms. Skurka was named to NCVHS in 2020 and serves on the Subcommittee on Standards.

  • Debra M. Strickland, MS
    Technical Project Manager
    Conduent
    Wallingford, CT 06492

    Debra M. Strickland is a nationally recognized health care executive with experience in the corporate and insurance sectors. In her current position at Conduent Services she leads teams on product development activities related to HIPAA transactions and Medicaid system upgrades. She brings extensive knowledge and expertise in working with HIPAA transaction and code sets and national health care standards development.

    She has extensive experience developing and implementing health data standards and related HIPAA Administrative Simplification regulations in diverse health care settings. As a result of her experience, she has developed a strong working knowledge of operational and public policy considerations while implementing and complying with HIPAA Administrative Simplification regulations across diverse organizations.

    Ms. Strickland is a recognized expert in electronic data interchange (EDI) transactions as the developer of the HIPAA mandated Electronic Remittance Advice (ERA) transaction and has authored articles on the Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) transaction. She maintains leadership roles in the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange (WEDI). In addition, she has been recognized with consecutive service awards for her leadership and commitment to ensure the success and fulfillment of WEDI’s mission and objectives.

    She has participated in the CAQH CORE process throughout her career and brings solid understanding of the impacts of a highly regulated environment. She has also implemented the HIPAA Operating Rules in a Medicaid setting and has a strong understanding of federal and state challenges of limited resources and tight budgets. Earlier in her career as Health Network Manager at Aetna Insurance, she applied her extensive knowledge of the X12 standards and electronic transactions to lead a team of EDI Support consultants and EDI network managers. She holds MS and BS degrees in Human Services, both from Springfield College. Ms. Strickland was appointed to NCVHS in 2017, serving on the Subcommittee on Standards.

  • Valerie Watzlaf, PhD, MPH, RHIA, FAHIMA
    Vice Chair of Education and Associate Professor
    University of Pittsburgh
    Department of Health Information Management
    School of Health and Rehabilitation Science
    6030 Forbes Tower, Pittsburgh, PA 15260

    Dr. Valerie Watzlaf is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Education within the Department of Health Information Management in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (SHRS) at the University of Pittsburgh. She has devoted over 35 years to teaching courses in health information management and informatics (including statistics, epidemiology, privacy and security, quality management, and research methods) and conducts research on clinical classification systems (coding productivity and predictive models) and telehealth privacy and security best practices.  She has also been instrumental as her role as Vice Chair of Education in the development of a new Master of Science in Health Informatics program at the University.  Dr. Watzlaf has worked as an HIM practitioner and consulted in several health care organizations in HIM, long-term care, and epidemiology.

    She was the 2019 President of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), a national HIM association in the US, representing over 100,000 members and was elected to its national Board of Directors by a national ballot and is currently serving a three year term. Dr. Watzlaf has served and chaired other national committees of AHIMA including the Data Quality Task Force; Coding, Policy, and Strategy Committee; Research Committee; Council on Accreditation (which is now CAHIIM—Commission on Accreditation of Health Informatics and Information Management), the Council for Excellence in Education (CEE); and the AHIMA Foundation Board of Directors. She was also appointed by AHIMA to serve on the American Medical Association’s CPT-5 Project and was a member of the Standards and Terminologies Task Force between the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) and AHIMA. She served on the Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of AHIMA (JAHIMA) and Perspectives in HIM. Dr. Watzlaf has published extensively in the field of HIM. She has delivered over 100 presentations and authored over 100 publications including “Health Informatics Research Methods: Principles and Practice,” which was recently recognized by Doody Enterprises as a Core Title in the Health Sciences for Health Information Management.

    A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Dr. Watzlaf received her Bachelor of Science (BS) in Health Records Administration from the School of Health Related Professions; her Master of Public Health (MPH) and Doctorate in Epidemiology from the Graduate School of Public Health; all from the University of Pittsburgh.  She also holds a secondary appointment in the Graduate School of Public Health.  Dr. Watzlaf has received several awards including the AHIMA Research Triumph Award, PHIMA’s (Pennsylvania’s) Distinguished Member Award, and the University of Pittsburgh’s SHRS Distinguished Alumnus Award.

  • Wu Xu, PhD
    Adjunct Faculty, Sociology, Bio-Medical Informatics, and Clinical Epidemiology
    University of Utah
    Salt Lake City, UT 84112

    Dr. Xu is a former State Director of Center for Health Data and Informatics in Utah Department of Health (UDOH). She has more than 25 years of experience in innovation, development and administration of interoperable information systems and analyzing integrated health data for public health policy and practice. Before her retirement in 2018, she oversaw statewide enterprise data management, analysis, exchange and sharing. Dr. Xu was a member of the UDOH Executive Leadership Team and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials’ (ASTHO) Informatics Policy Committee. Dr. Xu was the State Health IT Coordinator and on the Board of Directors for the Utah Health Information Network, Utah’s statewide Health Information Exchange (HIE). She also served as the executive staffer for two state statutory committees: Utah Digital Health Service Commission and Utah Health Data Committee.

    Dr. Xu has served as principal investigator or project director for more than 20 competitive federal grants from HHS and DOJ. She was one of the founding members for Utah’s hospital discharge data system, state immunization information system, and web-based query systems in the 1990s. In recent decades, she focused on promoting interoperability and integration of public health information systems and electronic health information exchange with healthcare systems. She was the inaugural director of Utah Office of Public Health Informatics, Utah All Payer Claims Database, and the UDOH first information security officer. Under her leadership, UDOH has been recognized by CDC’s informatics fellowship program and ASTHO as one of the top informatics-savvy state health departments.

    Currently, Dr. Xu is a member of the Utah Citizens’ Counsel, an independent group of senior community advocates dedicated to improving public policy. Dr. Xu also is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Utah’s Departments of Bio-medical Informatics, Internal Medicine/Clinical Epidemiology, and Sociology. She has published applied research in peer-reviewed journals with her academic colleagues and trainees. She received the 2018 Utah Governor’s Award for Excellence for Outstanding Public Service in her public health career and a Team Award for Outstanding Technology Innovation for timely development and implementation of an overdose alert application for the Utah controlled substance prescription and dispense system.  Dr. Xu received her doctoral degree in sociology with specialty in health demography from Utah State University in 1996, M.A. in Political Sciences, Tianjin Normal University, China in 1983 and B.A. in History, Sichuan University, China, 1980.  Dr. Xu was appointed to NCVHS in 2020.