Douglas E. Henley, M.D., FAAFP, serves as executive vice president (EVP) for the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). The AAFP is the medical specialty organization representing nearly 94,000 family physicians and medical students nationwide.

As EVP, Henley serves the Academy as chief executive officer. He also provides representation for the AAFP to other organizations, including medical, public and private sectors, and he serves on the board of directors of the AAFP Foundation, the charitable arm of the Academy. Michael Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services, appointed Henley as commissioner of the American Health Information Community, formed to help advance efforts to reach President Bush’s call for most Americans to have electronic health records within ten years. In this capacity he serves as co-chair of the Personalized Healthcare Workgroup.

Henley was also one of the inaugural commissioners of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology, created as an impartial panel to certify electronic health records and other health care information technology products. Henley is a founding member of the Ambulatory Care Quality Alliance Steering Committee, whose mission is to improve health care quality and patient safety.

Henley has been an AAFP physician member and volunteer since 1973. He was on the AAFP board of directors from 1991 to 1997, serving as chair from 1993 to 1994 and 1996 to 1997, and as president from 1995 to 1996.

Prior to assuming the position of EVP, Henley was in private practice for 20 years in his hometown of Hope Mills, N.C. He is the first practicing family physician to be named EVP and the first AAFP past-president and board chair to serve in that position.

In the past, Henley served on numerous AAFP committees and commissions including the Commission on Legislation and Governmental Affairs, Commission on Health Care Services, Commission on Public Health and Scientific Activities, Committee on Scientific Program and the Committee on Resident and Student Affairs.

Henley is a graduate of the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, Chapel Hill, and the university’s family medicine residency program. He is board certified by the American Board of Family Medicine and is an AAFP Fellow, an earned degree awarded to family physicians for distinguished service and continuing medical education.

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Henley’s many past appointments include serving on the editorial boards of Family Practice News and Journal of Family Practice; the American Medical Association Current Procedural Terminology Editorial Panel; the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment Advisory Panel on Technology, Insurance
and the Health Care System and the North Carolina Cervical Cancer Task Force; and as a member of the board of directors of the Annals of Family Medicine.