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Federal officials have made 16 of at least 20 appointments to the Health Information Technology Policy Committee, created under the economic stimulus law to advise the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology on implementation of a national health information network.

Gene Dodaro, Acting Comptroller General and head of the Government Accountability Office, has made 13 appointments. They are:

* Christine Bechtel, vice president at the National Partnership for Women & Families in Washington, representing patients or consumers;

* Arthur Davidson, M.D., director of public health informatics at the Denver Public Health Department, representing patients or consumers;

* Adam Clark, director of research and policy at the Lance Armstrong Foundation in Austin, Texas, representing patients or consumers;

* Marc Probst, CIO at Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City, representing providers;

* Paul Tang, M.D., CIO at Palo Alto Medical Foundation in Mountain View, Calif., representing providers;

* Scott White, assistant director at 1199 SEIU Training and Employment Fund in New York, representing unionized health care workers;

* LaTanya Sweeney, director of the Data Privacy Lab at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, representing health information privacy and security experts;

* Neil Calman, M.D., president and CEO at the Institute for Family Health in New York, representing vulnerable populations;

* Connie Delaney, R.N., Dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, representing the research community;

* Charles Kennedy, M.D., vice president of health information technology at WellPoint Inc., representing payers;

* Judith Faulkner, president and CEO at Epic Systems Corp., Verona, Wis., representing information technology vendors;

* David Lansky, president and CEO at Pacific Business Group on Health, representing purchasers or employers; and

* David Bates, M.D., medical director for clinical and quality analysis at Partners HealthCare System in Boston, representing quality measurement and reporting experts.

The nation’s four congressional leaders also get one appointment each to the HIT Policy Committee:

* House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has appointed Paul Egerman, chair and CEO at eScription Inc., Needham, Mass.

* House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has appointed Gayle Harrell of Stuart, Fla., a former member of the Florida House of Representatives.

* Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has appointed Frank Nemec, M.D., a Las Vegas-based gastroenterologist.

* Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has not yet announced his appointment.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services will appoint three members of the HIT Policy Committee. President Obama can appoint additional members to represent federal agencies.

--Joseph Goedert