After more than two years at the helm of privacy for HHS Office for Civil Rights, Deputy Director for Health Information Privacy Deven McGraw has left the post for work in the private sector.

She joined a Silicon Valley health technology startup that has yet to be named, but according to McGraw is focused on “empowering consumers,” according to Politico. Her last day at OCR was Oct. 19. 

"Deven McGraw has transitioned to the private sector," an OCR spokesperson said. "OCR will miss Deven, but will continue the robust mission of protecting health information with Iliana Peters as the acting deputy director for OCR Health Information Privacy."

Peter's, currently OCR Senior Adviser for Compliance and Enforcemen, will fill McGraw's position at HHS least temporarily. McGraw had also been working as ONC's chief privacy officer, a position that ONC head Donald Rucker has said will not be filled.

McGraw joined OCR in June 2015 and lead policy, enforcement and outreach efforts related to the HIPAA Privacy, Security, and Breach Notification Rules. She also lead work on other presidential and departmental priorities for health data security, according to HHS.

Her privacy pedigree is rich, having been appointed in 2009 by former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to the federal Health IT Policy Committee. As part of that work, she chaired the Committee’s Privacy and Security Workgroup and co-chaired its Tiger Team.

McGraw was also a partner at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips where she co-chaired its Privacy and Data Security practice, offering legal and business counsel to healthcare organizations in IT implementation and health information exchange, specifically HIPAA compliance and data governance.

She has also served as director of the Health Privacy Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology and as chief operating officer at the National Partnership for Women & Families.

Twitter: @BethJSanborn
Email the writer: beth.sanborn@himssmedia.com