Unabashed praise for Farzad Mostashari is flowing in from all over the healthcare community since he announced his resignation yesterday after two years as National HIT Coordinator. His four years, two years as Deputy National Coordinator, was a wisp of time in an industry that has struggled to keep the nation’s healthcare from falling behind in the world.

This man’s energy and enthusiasm behind the federal programs to transform healthcare was felt by those of us who are normally on another planet with regard to healthcare politics. He was the boss and leader for people liek me who have worked many years to make the system better. Farzad made it clear where the goal posts were and how we as a collective group of healthcare professionals need to employ our own smarts and innovation to get there. We are transforming the system for the greater good – because we believe the system needs to be better and that it can be better. The federal government provided incentives to create the infrastructure’s transformation, but the inspiration to do the hard work because there was a big picture in sight, came from Farzad. Farzad should be annointed as President of U.S. Healthcare. He gave us hope that our broken system could be better – and it wasn’t going to be through national healthcare.

I was shocked at how fast initiatives, information, and requests to participate came out of the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC). Their deadlines were shorter than the normal D.C. pace; that allowed this healthcare bubble in Washington to move fast and make decisions. They also coordinated with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) so well that it was hard to tell at times what was ONC and what was CMS. Most of all, under Farzad, ONC listened to the feedback from the industry stakeholders. That earned ONC a lot of respect, which flowed over to CMS.

In the last few years, electronic health records (EHR) have been widely implemented and provide the infrastructure to build a world class health system. There is now a standards and interoperability framework so vendors can develop products that talk to other systems and EHRs are certified so that providers know that the money they spend on an EHR will meet the requirements set out by the ONC and CMS for meaningful use. The regional extension center programs to assist primary care physicians with EHR adoption was very successful. Health information exchange pilots across the U.S. brought to the surface issues of adoption and sustainability that need solutions.

A tremendous amount of progress has been made since the HITECH Act but there is much left to do. We need the leadership, energy, enthusiasm, clarity and experience that Farzad possessed. I worked on exciting projects to transform healthcare during this time. It has been a fantastic time to actually see healthcare change and I hope that this pace continues.

Farzad, I wish you well. Thank you for your dedication and supreme leadership. We will miss you.