John Loonsk

Prior to coming to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, Dr. Loonsk was associate Director for Informatics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In that capacity he was instrumental in architecting the National Electronic Disease Surveillance System (NEDSS), leading the creation of the Public Health Information Network, initiating the BioSense program, and advancing the field of Public Health Informatics at the CDC and nationally.

He received his medical training at the State University of New York at Buffalo after graduating from the Johns Hopkins University. Through advanced degree work, research and administration he has pursued a medical career that balanced medicine and information technology.

His first medical informatics activities began as early as 1975 when he worked on a project to develop a taxonomy of liver diseases. Since then he has been involved in Informatics training, research and development at the State University of New York at Buffalo where he implemented the first mandatory course in the United States in Medical Informatics for medical students, and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he oversaw the development of an electronic learning and decision support environment which included the electronic resources of the Health Sciences library, the medical school curriculum and the Internet.

Throughout his time in academic medical centers, public health and government he has advanced internetworked health care, just in time information delivery, surveillance, digital libraries, and decision support.