Dr. Helga E. Rippen is the Chief Interoperability and Veteran Access Officer (CIVAO) in the Office of Technical Integration/ Business Outcomes Integration Services of OIT. She joined the Office of Information and Technology for Veterans Affairs (VA) 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 leverage technology 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 the soldier, the Veteran, and their families by working to facilitate progress in interoperability across VA, enabling the provision of seamless services. 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 fathers were both Korean War Veterans who have benefited from the services they received from VA. She was the President/CEO of Health Sciences of South Carolina providing governance and technical infrastructure to enable a learning health system. As the Chief Health Information Officer for HCA, she led the development and began the implementation of an EHR roadmap for HCA. Other activities included helping create the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology at the Department of Health and Human Services; supporting the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy as the Director of RAND’s Science and Technology Policy Institute; and leading the development of disease management systems for Pfizer Health Solutions. Dr. Rippen completed her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering at Duke University. She earned her medical degree from the University of Florida and went on to complete her residency in Preventative Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. During this time, she also received a master’s degree in public health. She is board certified in General Preventive Medicine and Public Health with an additional certification in Clinical Informatics.