Janet Vogel, deputy CIO at CMS, will replace Chris Wlaschin as HHS chief information security officer in April, a department spokesperson confirmed to Nextgov.
Here are four things to know about the executive move.
1. Ms. Vogel will rotate into the position during the course of April. In the HHS CISO role, Ms. Vogel will oversee the implementation of the agency's continuous diagnostics and mitigation program and two U.S. Department of Homeland Security cybersecurity programs. She will also expand Medicare and Medicaid best practices for protecting computer systems across HHS.
2. Ms. Vogel has spent more than half of her 30-year federal government career with CMS. She previously led Medicare and Medicaid's financial management systems group and held positions with the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
"Her broad spectrum of skills in information technology, information security, organizational change, acquisition and risk mitigation will be key to transforming and expanding HHS' cyber programs into the healthcare sector," the HHS spokesperson told Nextgov.
3. Mr. Wlaschin plans to resign from his post as HHS CISO at the end of March. The resignation comes amid policy and personnel conflicts at the Healthcare Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center, a stalled initiative HHS originally planned to launch in June 2017. Mr. Wlaschin has said his resignation is for personal reasons unrelated to the cybersecurity center's challenges.
4. Ms. Vogel will helm oversight of the Healthcare Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center after she assumes the HHS CISO post, leading industry stakeholders to question whether the center's vision may change. In April 2017, Mr. Wlaschin said the center would serve as a collaborative information analysis center, which was met with mixed reactions from healthcare stakeholders.