Director, Office of Policy and Planning

Jodi Daniel has served as Director in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), since October 2005. She is responsible for thought leadership, policy development, and identifying policy levers for health information technology (health IT) activities including, establishing new policies and working with other Federal agencies and private organizations to coordinate efforts regarding adoption and health information exchange. Ms. Daniel leads strategic initiatives regarding emerging issues in health care and technology, including consumer engagement using new technology (e.g., gaming, social media, mHealth), health IT safety (including clinical decision support, usability, and safety oversight), personalized medicine, and big data.  She leads ONC’s regulatory activities to develop standards and certification criteria for electronic health records and to establish a governance mechanism for nationwide health information exchange.  She also considers legal and ethical issues regarding health IT, such as liability, fraud and abuse laws, and patient access to information.  Ms. Daniel manages ONC’s federal advisory committees, which provide advice on all health IT policy and standards related matters, and developed the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan.

Ms. Daniel developed HHS’s foundational legal strategies for health IT, as the first Senior Counsel for Health Information Technology in the Office of the General Counsel of HHS. She was responsible for coordinating all legal advice regarding health IT for HHS, and was the lead attorney for ONC. She founded and chaired the health information technology practice group within OGC and worked closely with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the development of the e-prescribing standards regulations and the proposed Stark and anti-kickback rules regarding e-prescribing and electronic health records.

As an Attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the Office of General Counsel, Ms. Daniel played a central role in developing health information privacy policies and drafting the final HIPAA Privacy Rule and modifications, and the HIPAA Enforcement Rule.

Before joining HHS, Ms. Daniel was a health care associate at Ropes & Gray, where she advised health care providers and payers on transactional, regulatory, and legislative issues. She also worked at MetLife as an internal management consultant and a health benefits consultant.

Ms. Daniel earned a law degree from Georgetown University and a Masters in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.