Michelle Dougherty is an expert in health informatics, health IT, and related policy areas with leadership experience throughout the healthcare standards community. Much of her work focuses on health informatics in long-term care, post-acute care and home- and community-based services for an aging population. She has extensive experience in the use of health information and technology to support the care delivery process, emerging payment models, quality measurement, and standards.
Ms. Dougherty convened and facilitated the long-term and post-acute care (LTPAC) Health Information Technology (IT) Collaborative, a public-private partnership. Its mission is to accelerate the use of technology tools to support person-centered care across the continuum through thought leadership, coordinated activities, and an annual summit.
Currently, Ms. Dougherty leads the CMS Data Element Library Health IT Workgroup, providing policy and strategy leadership on long-term and post-acute care issues. She is also an associate project director for the CMMI Innovation models for primary care, known as Primary Care First and Comprehensive Primary Care Plus. In addition, she serves as Stakeholder Group Lead for an AHRQ electronic care plan project to pilot test a SMART on FHIR application.
Ms. Dougherty joined RTI in 2015. Previously, she was Senior Director of Research and Development with the AHIMA Foundation, advancing strategy in the areas of workforce development, evidence-based health information research, and health care policy in the United States and globally. She has also served as Director of Practice Leadership with the American Health Information Management Association, leading industry- and profession-shaping initiatives that advanced health information issues, particularly in health IT, legal EHR requirements, and LTPAC/LTSS. She convened public and private stakeholders to shape national health IT policies for LTPAC and co-chaired a HL7 standards workgroup to develop EHR standards.
In 2008, Ms. Dougherty received a special recognition from the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging for exemplary federal research to advance the well-being of older Americans. She is a Registered Health Information Administrator (RHIA) and Certified in Healthcare Privacy (CHP) with the American Health Information Management Association. She is a member of the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA), the International Federation of Health Information Management Associations (IFHIMA), the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS), and the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA). Her notable publications include - Advancing health information technology roadmaps in long term care, Building consensus toward a national nursing home information technology maturity model, and EHR payment incentives for providers ineligible for payment incentives and other funding.
