Dena Puskin, ScD  

Dr. Puskin is Director of the federal Office for the Advancement of Telehealth. She chairs the Joint Working Group on Telemedicine, the federal interagency committee coordinating the development of telemedicine initiatives across the federal government and within the Department of Health and Human Services. Before assuming her current position, Dr. Puskin served as Acting Director of the federal Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP). Prior to joining ORHP, Dr. Puskin was a senior analyst for the Prospective Payment Assessment Commission from 1984 -1988, where she developed the model for annual updates of Medicare payment rates to hospitals. From 1982-1984, she was a senior legislative analyst for the Blue Cross/Blue Shield Association. Dr. Puskin received her ScD degree in Health Policy and Research from Johns Hopkins University, her MS degree in Community Medicine from the University of Rochester, School of Medicine and Dentistry, and BA and MA degrees in Biology from Boston University.

Puskin's many accomplishments include:

• Administered telemedicine programs since 1988, after joining HRSA as the Deputy Director of the Office of Rural Health Policy.
• Since 1989 awarded over $250 million for over 450 grants in 48 states and 3 jurisdictions, benefiting over 500 communities. Provided strong objective technical assistance and, at times, vision and leadership that resulted in a community of interest among the grantees that incubated leadership in the telehealth community and allowed it to blossom. Many of the OAT grantees are now in leadership positions within ATA.
• Worked in close collaboration with the telemedicine community to overcome barriers to the effective adoption of telehealth technologies, assisting programs in understanding both the constraints and opportunities posed by federal legislation, regulation, and policies. For example, supported and helped develop pioneer analyses that led to legislation authorizing Medicare reimbursement for telemedicine.
• Successfully promoted collaboration among telemedicine service providers in a fiercely competitive environment. This collaboration has resulted in several precedent setting technical assistance documents, such as early technology guidelines or more recently "A Guide to Getting Started In Telemedicine" based on a collaboration of over 50 individuals involved with OAT grants.

Early on, recognized the importance of the grants for developing critical lessons learned and promote collaborative data collection.