The American Health Information Management Association’s board of directors has named Alan F. Dowling as the organization's next CEO.
He is scheduled to take office January 13, 2010, and will succeed Linda Kloss, who announced her resignation in July.
According to the AHIMA board, Dowling’s extensive health information experience includes academia, systems management, strategic expertise, governance and corporate and not-for-profit executive leadership.
Dowling is an adjunct professor of information systems at Case Western Reserve University and has lectured at Georgetown University, the American University of Beirut, Simmons College and the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned his PhD in healthcare management and management information systems.
“Dr. Dowling has a deep understanding of the complexity of issues facing our association, our members and our industry as a whole. His experience in the areas of health information and informatics, as well as healthcare delivery systems, gives him keen insights into what will be vital to the next decade of health information management and technology,” said Vera Rulon, AHIMA's board president. “He is the ideal person for the job ahead.”
Dowling said he looks forward to helping the nation harness and manage health information and transform healthcare effectiveness.
“We will be coming together at a time when the way has been pointed, yet there remains a wide and complex path that we must construct if healthcare information and informatics is to fulfill its potential and produce value for our society,” he said.
Dowling will help AHIMA pursue an agenda that includes ICD-10 adoption, health information management workforce development, international health information management community leadership, personal health records and the protection of patients’ health information rights, the board said.