The White House plans to nominate Kurt DelBene to the positions of CIO and Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology at the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has come under fire in recent months from Congress over a troubled roll-out and cost estimates for its electronic health records modernization (EHRM) program.
If confirmed by the Senate, DelBene will come to the VA CIO position with both extensive private sector and Federal government healthcare agency experience.
According to the White House, he retired from Microsoft in September as the company’s executive vice president, core services engineering and operations, and was previously president of the Microsoft Office Division.
On the government side, DelBene worked in the Obama administration on improvements to the Healthcare.gov enrollment website, with the title of senior advisor to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
VA’s prior CIO, Jim Gfrerer, left the agency earlier this year with the change in presidential administrations.
