Thomas Mason, MD, will join ONC as the chief medical officer, effective Feb. 23.

Mason, an internist, will have clinical oversight of ONC programs and clinical coordination within ONC. He will also regularly engage with physician organizations.

ONC chief Karen DeSalvo, MD, announced the addition today in an email to ONC staff.

Mason is a board certified internist with an emphasis on primary care and preventative medicine with 14 years of experience. Throughout his career, he has led the implementation of multiple EHR systems.

He also has more than 10 years of additional experience and training in the principles of public health and population medicine.

Mason comes to ONC from the Cook County Health and Hospitals System in Chicago, the third largest public hospital system in the country, where he serves as chief medical informatics officer of the Ambulatory and Community Health Network of Cook County. In this role, he has led the implementation of an outpatient EHR system consisting of 16 primary care health centers and 110 specialty care clinics staffed by more than 600 physicians and serving more than 200,000 patients a year.

He also plays a vital role in the implementation of the patient centered medical home wellness management and disease prevention model at CCHHS.

Mason is also medical director of a CCHHS community health center on the Southside of Chicago and is still an active clinician caring for patients.

In her email to staff, DeSalvo said both she and Mason are champions for advancing a person-centered, interoperable, learning health system that results in better care, better quality and better outcomes for individual, community and population health.

Mason will succeed Jon White, MD, who is serving ONC as the posts of Acting Deputy National Coordinator and Acting Chief  Medical Officer.

Mason is the second new hire at ONC in two weeks. On Jan. 21, DeSalvo announced that Michael James McCoy, MD, would be joining the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT in the newly created position of Chief Health Information Officer.

[See also: New position, new face at ONC.]

Both report directly to DeSalvo.