The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is restocking some of its top technology leadership positions following an organizational reshuffling last year.
New biographies added to the department’s website on Monday name Alicia Rouault as the associate deputy assistant secretary for technology policy and chief technology officer (CTO), Kristen Honey as the chief data officer (CDO), and Meghan Dierks as the chief artificial intelligence officer (CAIO).
Before joining HHS, Rouault served as a director at the United States Digital Service (USDS) where she led a cross-agency program to respond to financial hardships for Americans and provide rapid-responses to governments during the COVID-19 pandemic. She also led Federal technology strategy while at USDS, according to her bio.
She also logged stints at the General Services Administration’s 18F IT services and consulting organization, and Code for America. Rouault was also the founder of tech startup LocalData.
Rouault will be leading the new Office of the Chief Technology Officer, propped up during an organizational shift at HHS over the summer. She’s the first person to hold the position of CTO at HHS since Ed Simcox left in 2020.
“Together we’ll be building out a new Office of the CTO at HHS, charged with leading HHS’ digital strategy and digital services for HHS programs, developing HHS data policy, anticipating emergent technology and data needs, and coordinating innovation across HHS programs to encourage experimentation, R&D and adoption of new technology,” said Rouault in a LinkedIn post about the new role.
After helping to establish the HHS Office of the CDO (OCDO) in 2020 during the pandemic, Honey is taking on the permanent role of CDO after serving as the acting CDO and executive director of data operations at HHS. She established the HHS InnovationX team, which aims to accelerate data-driven innovation and solutions via coalitions and collaborations.
Before joining HHS in 2018, Honey served as an advisor to the U.S. CTO at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and worked in the Office of Management and Budget to advise the Federal chief information officer.
Dierks joins HHS from a background in academia and industry, most recently serving as the CDO of Komodo Health, a San Francisco-based health care software company, where she led the “development and evaluation of AI-powered healthcare analytics tools,” according to her HHS bio.
She has also taught in in the pre- and post-doctoral research and training programs in the Division of Clinical Informatics at Harvard Medical School since 2001. Other leadership positions include those at GE Healthcare, Magellan Health, and Lumeris Health Outcomes.
In a three-year stint working in the Office of the Center Director at the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, Dierks led interagency and cross-jurisdictional initiatives focused on data modeling, predictive analytics, and device shortages surveillance initiatives.
“What if we could transform healthcare by applying AI through an ethical, human-centered lens?” wrote Dierks in a LinkedIn post about her new role as HHS CAIO. “In this position, I’ll focus on harnessing AI’s potential to address mission-critical challenges while maintaining our commitment to ethical, effective, and secure solutions.”
“Our goal is to advance human potential within HHS and across the larger healthcare system through responsible AI – from generating evidence-based insights and enhancing capabilities to accelerating scientific discovery and transforming service delivery,” she continued.
The three new appointments complete a search to fill those positions following HHS’s consolidation of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC), the Assistant Secretary for Administration (ASA), and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), into the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy and ONC (ASTP/ONC).
As part of the reshuffle, the roles of CTO, CDO, and CAIO – previously overseen by the three separate offices – became permanent roles under ASTP/ONC.
