Robert Kolodner, MD, FACMI

r. Robert Kolodner received his bachelorís degree from Harvard and his MD degree from Yale. After a medical internship at New England Deaconess Hospital he was a Clinical Fellow in Medicine at Harvard, and then completed his psychiatric residency at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He rose through the ranks of the VA informatics hierarchy, serving as Director of Medical Information Resources Management and Associate Chief Information Officer, and at the time he was nominated to the American College of Medical Informatics fellowship he was Chief Health Informatics Officer for the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Washington, DC. Over the course of his career, Dr. Kolodner has profoundly influenced the field of clinical information systems contributions to the VA Decentralized Hospital Computer Program (DHCP) and the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA). As noted in his nomination, the VA is widely recognized as one of the leaders in systems approaches to health care delivery due in significant part to Dr. Kolodnerís vision, thought leadership, and day-to-day guidance. Shortly after the College election, the President George W. Bush named Dr. Kolodner as Acting Director of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, succeeding Dr. David Brailer. Dr. Kolodnerís election to the College recognizes these sustained contributions that have had a national impact.