Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services
Division of Public Health
301 Centennial Mall South
P.O. Box 95007
Lincoln,
NE
USA
68509-5007
Email:
david.lawton@dhhs.ne.gov
Biographical Sketch:
David Lawton is the Public Health Informatics Coordinator for the State of Nebraska. He has been working in the area of Electronic Health Records for 20 years. Currently he serves on the Health Information Privacy and Security Committee (HISPC) and the eHealth Council. He is a member of the Population Health Technical Committee of HITSP and a voting member of the HITSP Panel. He is on the board for the Public Health Data Standards Consortium (PHDSC) and co-chair of the Privacy and Security Committee. Prior to his current assignment, he was the Health Surveillance Section Administrator for the State of Nebraska. He served as the Health Alert Network Coordinator in the Bioterrorism Response Section where he coordinated the development of Nebraska’s Health Alert Network, one of the most successful health alert networks in the country. He is responsible for and contributed to the development of the state wide Telehealth Network, a video conferencing network linking all hospitals and public health departments in Nebraska.
Prior to the State of Nebraska, Dr. Lawton had a long and diverse career in nursing. He taught nursing for ten years, managed nursing in hospitals for eight years, at every management level. His practice specialty was critical care pediatrics. He worked in pediatric ICU, pediatric open heart, neonatal, ER/Trauma and burn.
Dr. Lawton is a patient advocate and promoter of professional nursing practice. He has encouraged and developed shared governance, professional management practices and servant leadership. He has a driving interest in electronic medical records, personal health records, and healthcare reform.