Dr. Rippen is the Chief Interoperability and Veteran Access Officer. Dr. Helga E. Rippen joined VA’s Office of Information and Technology (OIT) as the Deputy Director for the Interagency Program Office (IPO) in January 2018. With her experience in population and preventative medicine, analytics, health informatics, and policy, Dr. Rippen strives to improve peoples’ lives. She has worked with many types of audiences, such as lay-people, C-suite members of Fortune 100 organizations, and senior leaders of the federal government. These interactions have given her insight into the various drivers impacting health and health care delivery organizations. Dr. Rippen will use this knowledge at VA to help the Department fulfill its mission and embody its core values. She looks forward to supporting the needs of active-duty military members, the Veteran, and their families by working to ensure that their health information is available to clinicians to provide quality care whether they are seen at a DoD, VA or civilian healthcare system. Dr. Rippen is fully committed to the mission of VA, as it is one dear to her heart. Her husband is a retired Special Forces officer, and their parents are all Veterans who have benefited from the services they received from VA. Prior to joining VA, Dr. Rippen was the Chief Medical Officer at AlertgyInc. in Melbourne, Florida. There, she was a part of a start-up team that aimed to transform health through innovative technology. She was the President/CEO of Health Sciences of South Carolina providing governance and technical infrastructure to enable a learning health system. Dr. Rippen also led the development of an EHR implementation roadmap for HCA; helped create the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the Department of Health and Human Services; supported the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy; and led the development of disease management systems for Pfizer Health Solutions.Education: Doctor of Medicine, University of Florida; Residency in Preventative Medicine, Johns Hopkins University; Ph.D. Biomedical Engineering, Duke University; M.P.H. Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University; B.S. Mechanical Engineering; Boarded in General Preventive Medicine and Public Health and also Health Informatics
