Bob Mcdonald tapped to save the VA

Bob Mcdonald appointed to lead VAAccording to CNN, a White House official told CNN on Sunday that President Barack Obama will nominate Bob Mcdonald — West Point graduate and former CEO of Procter & Gamble (and my old boss!!!) — to head the Department of Veterans Affairs .

Wow, what an awesome appointment. Still to be confirmed — but Bob would knock this out of the park. It’s the kind of principled leadership and people focus that the VA needs. It’s also fantastic to see a private sector leader brought into the healthcare space — increasingly we are seeing healthcare organizations reach outside the industry to drive transformation and change.

It would be great to see deeper integration and use of the Blue Button initiative which is already integrated with Microsoft HealthVault.

We were part of the Markle workgroup where the Blue Button concept was born, and at the very first Community Health Data Initiative conference we demonstrated how veterans could upload their BB files into HealthVault to share with other providers and use with hundreds of HealthVault-enabled apps. Building on those early days, we’ve been key contributors to Blue Button Plus — today, every (US-based) HealthVault user can receive and send BB+ messages and data using their free address, and thousands of messages pass through this channel every month.

Exciting times — way to go Bob!

Written by

Former CMO at Microsoft U.S. and Sprinklr; currently CMO at PROS, and recently described by Tom Foremski at ZDNet as "...a near perfect example of what a tech company CMO should be like." Personal Philosophy: “To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson