HHS’ national health security division must be preserved

By W. Craig Vanderwagen and Jennifer B. Alton, STAT, First Opinion Contributors - 02/20/25

Change has come to the Department of Health and Human Services. With the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary, major shifts in organizational structure, staffing, and policy priorities across the department are already underway.

Lessons Learned From Crisis: How COVID-19 Yielded Lessons for AI and Health Policy

Panel at Alliance for Health Policy’s 2024 Signature Series Summit: AI in Health - Navigating New Frontiers - 08/12/24

The COVID-19 pandemic proved to be a transformative period for health systems, offering critical insights into managing rapid and complex health care challenges. Panelists discussed lessons learned from the pandemic and their application to the ongoing development of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care and health policy.

Moderator: Jennifer Alton, MPP, President, Pathway Policy Group LLC

Panelists:

  • Lee Fleisher, M.D., M.L., Former CMO & Director of CCSQ at CMS, Founding Principal, Rubrum Advising

  • Laura Holliday, M.S., Assistant Director, Government Accountability Office

  • Hilary Marston, M.D., MPH, Chief Medical Officer, Food & Drug Administration

  • Anonymous panelist

How a reorganized HHS can improve pandemic readiness

By W. Craig Vanderwagen and Jennifer B. Alton, The Hill Opinion Contributors - 08/18/22

The Secretary of Health and Human Services recently announced an important reorganization that can help the federal government prevent future pandemics and be better prepared for other health emergencies. HHS changed the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response from a “staff division” to an “operating division” and renamed it the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR).

New models for pandemic response can be found in existing agencies

By W. Craig Vanderwagen, Kevin Yeskey & Jennifer B. Alton, The Hill Opinion Contributors, 05/13/21

As we start the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic under a new administration and we get our country on the road to recovery, it is time to take steps to improve the federal government’s structure for future pandemics. A combination of staffing and structural changes at the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services are needed.

COVID shows US needs stronger legislation for effective public health agencies

By W. Craig Vanderwagen, Kevin Yeskey, Jennifer B. Alton, The Hill Opinion Contributors, 2/11/2021

There are many reasons why ASPR has not been able to live up to its full potential at coordinating the federal medical and public health response to this emergency. Conflicts between national plans and frameworks, interagency mission creep, political intervention, departmental in-fighting, disregard for the PAHPA framework and insufficient funding over the last decade all contributed to this outcome.

Now is the time to resource the Public Health Emergency Fund

By Jennifer B. Alton and Ellen P. Carlin, The Hill Opinion Contributors, 2/28/2020

When Congress appropriates emergency supplemental funding for COVID-19, it should put the money into the Public Health Emergency Fund. Any leftover money after the outbreak could be used as seed funding for responding to future outbreaks, obviating the need for future emergency supplementals.