What has been your biggest surprise?
One of the biggest surprises to me has been the enormous dedication and generosity of the many individuals and groups who have worked in this field for so long, have remained committed to it and are convinced of the value of information technology. We have relied enormously on our federal advisory committees. That’s not always the case in federal government, but it has proven to be the case here. I can’t total up the number of hours of donated time of high quality people with great expertise, enormous generosity, enormous selflessness, who are trying to get it right – not trying to advocate for a special interest or a point of view. That has been absolutely invaluable to trying to get accomplished what we have up to this point.

What is the next big step – the biggest hurdle – on the way to meaningful use?
The biggest one on our agenda right now is assuring interoperability and facilitating exchange so that the next stage of meaningful use can bring that into being. It’s a mix of policy and of technology and of politics and of economics. It’s everything wrapped into one. It’s a really big and important list for our country as a whole and for us at the Office of the National Coordinator.

[More on interoperability: Blumenthal: Tear down walls that block information exchange.]

This undertaking is massive and complicated, with such high stakes. What or who inspires you as you do this work?
I began working for President Obama within a week or two of his announcement for presidency. I worked on his healthcare advisory team starting in the winter of 2007, and I stayed with the campaign through the entire journey. It has always been my intent to serve the president as best I can. That desire is what has kept me in this work and caused me to come here to Washington. I think he’s a president for whom technology and its effectiveness has an intuitive appeal. He’s also a science-based and evidence-based leader. Those are both qualities that I find admirable coming from the background that I come from in academics. His example is what has kept me going.