Dive Brief:
- The Department of Health and Human Services has appointed Susannah Fox to replace Bryan Sivak as its new chief technology officer.
- Most recently, Fox served as entrepreneur in residence at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Prior to that, she spent 14 years as the director of health and technology at the Pew Research Center.
- Fox is a long-time proponent of the "data liberación" effort, which aims to make health data more easily available and accessible to the public.
Dive Insight:
This is a relatively new position, established by the Obama administration in 2009 when Todd Park assumed the role, and HHS is obviously still getting a handle on what kind of candidate is best suited for it. Both Sivak and Park had entrepreneurial backgrounds—Park co-founded athenahealth and Castlight and Sivak co-founded InQuira and Electric Knowledge (albeit in the late '90s and early '00s). Fox comes primarily from a research background, although she is leaving a role as the Entrepreneur in Residence at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to take this position.
Among the things Fox says she hopes to accomplish as the new CTO are to support and expand the data liberación work begun by Todd Park and nurture an entrepreneurial environment, which she credits Sivak for fostering. Both of these are largely cultural goals in a position that is still finding its feet in terms of authority, so it remains to be seen what this role will accomplish in the long term.