Chief Nursing Officer
ONC
Washington, DC
Rebecca Freeman, PhD, RN is the Chief Nursing Officer of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC).
Dr. Freeman is a second-career nurse with a focus on healthcare informatics. Dr. Freeman's first career was in the field of Information Technology; she specialized in networking and device management, SCADA systems, analytics, and large-scale IT project management. She graduated with her BSN from the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in Charleston, SC in 2008. Following graduation, she entered a critical care (Emergency Medicine) nurse residency and continued her academic progression, completing her PhD in nursing from MUSC in December, 2013.
With the ONC, Dr. Freeman provides nursing leadership for comprehensive initiatives focusing on nursing practice, administration, research, and partnerships in support of Health IT enabled patient care. She also serves as a liaison to internal and external communities. She develops, supports, and implements innovations in the design and evaluation of health IT as it relates to clinical nursing practice. This work requires the exercise of independent judgment and resourceful policy, technical, and operational solutions as needed to support health care providers. Dr. Freeman also provides written responses to draft legislation and ensures expert nursing opinions and input on key proposals and inquiries.
Dr. Freeman’s PhD work focused on interdisciplinary collaboration and she has a keen interest in the collaboration of nurses with other healthcare team members, specifically the barriers that hinder, and variables that encourage, teamwork. Combining her backgrounds, she works with all aspects of the implementation of enterprise, interdisciplinary electronic health record (EHR) systems and other types of Health IT. She enjoys facilitating team-building, the creation of interdisciplinary governance structures and task forces, and actively strives to engage bedside nurse and operational owners in the Health IT development/optimization process. She loves to facilitate change, enhance practice, and integrate interdisciplinary practice and research in the medical record. Her ultimate goal is to enhance care and satisfaction for the clinician and optimize care/outcomes/satisfaction for patients, through the use of Health Information Technology.