Former military medicine leader, Dr. Bart Harmon, MD, MPH, joined Harris Corporation as chief medical officer (CMO) of the company's new Healthcare Solutions Business. Dr. Harmon is a national leader in military healthcare and health information systems. For the past eight years, Dr. Harmon served as the chief, medical informatics, chief medical information officer and the director of information management for the Military Health System of the U.S. Department of Defense. In these roles, Dr. Harmon served on the staff of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs.

Dr. Harmon was instrumental in achieving the first stage of a global standardized electronic health system. On several occasions, Dr. Harmon briefed and successfully defended DoD's health IT strategy, electronic health record strategies and DoD's initiatives to congressional members and Joint Chiefs of Staff Committees.

Dr. Harmon chaired the work group that defined information sharing requirements between the DoD and the Veterans Health Administration. He later co-chaired the NATO Medical Communication and Information Systems Expert Panel to define NATO standards for electronic health information sharing. Most of Dr. Harmon's experiences were focused on consensus-building, collaboration, defining a vision and communicating that vision. "I cannot think of anywhere other than the military where I could have been exposed to such a diverse and challenging career. I believe these experiences and attributes will serve me well while working at a large, international company like Harris" says Dr. Harmon.

Dr. Harmon views his position at Harris Corporation as an opportunity to take his experience and lessons learned with the military to the public sector. He is on a mission to fully understand the capabilities of his new organization and apply them to healthcare in order to make a difference.