Senior Advisor
![Vafiades headshot](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20201218041512im_/https://www.healthit.gov/sites/default/files/styles/leadership_bio/public/2019-01/Vafiades%20Pic.jpg?itok=4yedyGt5)
Mark Vafiades serves as a Senior Advisor to the National Coordinator for Health IT, having transitioned from within HHS’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health and the U.S. Surgeon General. Mr. Vafiades leads ONC’s outreach to health information exchanges (HIEs) and community health organizations.
Prior to HHS, Mr. Vafiades was an electronic health records (EHR) site implementation manager for Kaiser Permanente in Southern California. There he led the conversion from paper charts to electronic records in his service area, later becoming the service area EHR site leader once the implementation was complete.
Before joining Kaiser Permanente, Mr. Vafiades served as a national lead training project manager for IBM. He also spent five years managing two state agencies for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
While living in Southern California, Mr. Vafiades worked as a reserve patrol deputy/first responder for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for twenty years. That experience gave him a unique understanding of the ground-level challenges facing the public health system.