The revolving door of healthcare IT

Internist David Brailer used to be the point man for the Bush administration in its push to build a nationwide health information network. He’s now the chairman of a private-equity firm with more money to invest in healthcare IT—$700 million—than he had at his command back in his federal days.

Those big bucks are hitting the marketplace. Brailer’s firm, Health Evolution Partners, announced on April 28 that it was investing an undisclosed amount of money in an electronic prescribing company called Prematics. Various health plans have rolled out Prematics’ e-prescribing service—including wireless hand-held computers—for participating physicians to use free of charge.

As part of the deal, Brailer will join the Prematics board of directors and hobnob with some other Beltway public servants who have migrated to private industry. Two members of the company’s executive council are former Health and Human Services Secretary Tommie Thompson and former Sen. John Breaux (D) from Louisiana.

Health Evolution Partners is channeling money to Prematics through an investment fund called the Health Evolution Partners Innovation Network. Four well-connected physicians serve as HEPIN advisors: Former Surgeon General and general surgeon Richard H. Carmona, preventive medicine specialist David M. Lawrence, former chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente; psychiatrist Arnold Milstein, co-founder of The Leapfrog Group; and preventive medicine specialist Molly J. Coye, founder and CEO of The Health Technology Center.

Brailer headed the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, a branch of HHS, from May 2004 to April 2006.

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