Reports David Bernstein, Patrick has tapped JudyAnn Bigby to be head of HHS. Here’s her bio, and that link also leads to a video interview and transcript. She seems big on the health of underserved populations and on the need for physicians to learn how to communicate with them:
One of the things that I am trying to do is to try to get physicians to see things from the patient’s perspective. Not just how it feels to have a heart attack, or breast cancer, or something like that. But also how the circumstances of a patient’s life impacts everything that happens to them, from the moment they walk into a health care facility. It may determine how comfortable they feel speaking to the secretary. It may determine how comfortable they feel asking a doctor a question. It may impact how comfortable they feel accepting instructions or advice from a doctor.
This may sound squishy or touchy-feely vague, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind:
- MassHealth is a big, big chunk of the state’s budget, and bound to grow under the new health care law;
- much of the “underserved” population is either on MassHealth or eligible for it;
- Dr. Bigby contends that folks’ health depends on clear communication with their health care providers. Sounds like common sense, but doubtless a tricky matter to implement.
- Deval Patrick has proposed cutting state spending at least partially through finding new efficiencies in health care.
Is providing better communication and better care to underserved populations at odds with finding efficiencies? Or are they compatible goals? I tend to think the latter, but we’ll see what Dr. Bigby thinks.
UPDATE: I hope John McDonough at Health Care for All doesn’t mind me reprinting his post in full:
Gov. Deval Patrick has named Dr. Judy Ann Bigby to be his Secretary of Health & Human Services. Dr. Bigby is an internist at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston (she is Mayor Tom Menino’s personal physician), where she is also medical director of the Center for Perinatal and Family Health. She is also faculty member at Harvard Medical School where she serves as director of the Harvard Medical School Center of Excellence in Women’s Health. She has a long history of working in behalf of the medically underserved; she’s a long time leader in efforts to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in health care, especially those affecting women. She also is a leader in substance abuse treatment and prevention.
Dr. Bigby has worked with Health Care For All and other consumer and advocacy organizations for many years. She was a leader in pushing hospitals to recognize a greater level of responsibility for serving their communities. Dr. Bigby faces an awesome set of challenges in her new position, not the least of which is spearheading implemention of the health reform law passed last April.
We think she’s a great choice and we look forward to working with her. Congrats to Dr. Bigby and Gov-elect Patrick on this important selection.
Great pick
Have you said too much already? đŸ™‚
And she is/was Mayor Menino’s personal physician….
That was my first thought and is even more so after reading the various links that Charley kindly provided in the post (thanks much). I’ve been so eager to know the news of HHS Sec ASAP that I’m checking BMG from NC – well worth it!!
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I didn’t really have an inkling that a person from the clinical/teaching arena would be chosen, so I’d been trying to think of strong candidates with management/system level experience. Of course Dr. Bigby has had some of those experiences too, in addition to her clinical and academic expertise. I’m SO PSYCHED that our new Sec of HHS has a special interest and background in substance abuse issues. My community health nursing student clinical group devoted a post-conference seminar discussion to the issue of substance abuse because the students had identified, through their course readings, lectures, and their clincial experiences with patients, that huge potential exists to do better in identifying and effectively working with patients, families and communities to address substance abuse challenges. It’s also a clinical and health system area that has a HUGE IMPACT on health care economics. There is untold potential to provide better interventions both on the individual level and the community level that will help reduce the cost of substance abuse – both in dollars and in human suffering.
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Lastly, I and many other clinicians will be encouraged and inspired, I expect, by much in Dr. Bigby’s bio, including her discussion of communication and how this gets to the heart of what’s needed to address racial and ethnic health disparities. And then her final comments about the need for front-line clinicians to be part of reforming the health care system is music to my ears and to so many others!!!
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January 4, 2007 can’t get here soon enough!
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