On Wednesday, October 3rd, Suzy Cobin and her colleagues at HSA PrimeCare hosted an exclusive cocktail reception and “Meet & Greet” at the JW Marriott with Aneesh Chopra, who served for two years as President Obama’s Chief Technology Officer. Aneesh and Suzy worked together at the Washington, DC health care research and technology firm, The Advisory Board Company, where Mr. Chopra currently works as a senior advisor providing technology strategy and consulting with hospitals, health systems and physician practices on using data to improve performance.

From left to right: HSA Commercial’s Doug Jones, Aneesh Chopra, Modern Healthcare’s publisher Fawn Lopez, PrimeCare’s Suzy Cobin, and her husband Jon Cobin

Aneesh addressed the elite group of physicians, health care leaders, and professionals from Chicago’s leading tech and health care design firms with his characteristic high-energy and thought-provoking style. Chopra’s remarks centered around the amount of data rapidly becoming available, federal incentive payment programs to adopt health care information technology, and value-based payment reform coming together to create new opportunities in health care. Medical records data, as Aneesh commented, is very powerful in health care and serves as “the new rocket fuel for innovation.” He quoted a McKinsey & Co. study which estimates that there are a growing number of new products, services, and applications available or being developed due to open health care data.

Among other technology and health care advancements, Aneesh described the Blue Button initiative, which has allowed over 1 million Americans to download their medical records, empowering patients and making them more accountable for their own care. Veterans Affairs, the Defense Department, and larger payers such as Aetna and UnitedHealth have adopted the Blue Button program. In the coming months, Blue Button will enable hospitals and office-based physicians to share patient records.

Mr. Chopra attended Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland; received his Master in Public Policy at the Kennedy School at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and currently lives in Virginia with his wife and two daughters.