Chief data officer leaving Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Niall Brennan (CMS)
Niall Brennan, chief data officer for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is leaving the agency, FedScoop has learned.
Brennan, also CMS’s director of the Office of Enterprise Data and Analytics, will “pursue new opportunities,” according to an email sent to CMS staff last week.
During his tenure as CMS’s first chief data officer, Brennan was a leading advocate for the liberation of health data and spurring innovation around it to improve the quality of medical care.
“Under Niall’s leadership, CMS took its data governance, analytic, and dissemination efforts to a new level. Niall has been at the forefront of the government data liberation movement, resulting in CMS being recognized as a model for other public and private organizations,” the email from CMS leadership says. “Niall and his team have also modernized and increased CMS analytic capabilities, resulting in increased access to real-time analytics and more interactive dashboards for both internal and external users. Niall also led the back-end data reconciliation effort for healthcare.gov and continues to lead CMS reporting and analytics for the marketplace.”
FedScoop caught up with Brennan in July 2015, highlighting the growth of CMS’s data movement under his leadership.
Brennan’s deputy, Chris Cox, will replace him as acting CDO. Cox, who’s served as deputy CDO for more than five years, has more than 30 years of federal service, beginning her career at the National Center for Health Statistics.
CMS did not comment further on Brennan’s departure.
