As the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office for the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology searches to fill its lead privacy role, some question whether new priorities and budget constraints impede the search, FierceHealthcare reports. The position has remained vacant following the departures of ONC CPO Lucia Savage and Deven McGraw, who was filling in as part of her role as the Office for Civil Rights' privacy lead. Speaking to  FierceHealthcare, Jeff Smith, vice president of public policy at the American Medical Informatics Association, said, “I can only extrapolate that looking at the priorities of the office, filling the position is not a priority.” Genevieve Morris, ONC's principal deputy national coordinator for health information technology, said the agency is "currently finding the right individual to fill the position." Morris added, "None of this works if we don’t have security guaranteed to patients, so we need the right individual to do the job." Under a provision included in the HITECH Act, enacted in 2009, the Health and Human Services secretary is required to appoint a CPO “to advise the national coordinator on privacy, security and data stewardship of electronic health information and to coordinate with other federal agencies.” 
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