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New Department of Public Health seeks staff and systems upgrades for facility oversight, moms and infectious diseases
Summary
Interim DPH director Dr. Edward Simmer asked the Senate Finance subcommittee for staffing and IT investments to speed facility complaint response, expand maternal health access with a mobile maternity unit and public education, and add frontline staff for tuberculosis, STIs and rabies response, plus IT modernization.
Dr. Edward Simmer, interim director of the newly formed Department of Public Health, presented four prioritized budget requests to the Senate Finance subcommittee on March 5 aimed at rebuilding public‑health capacity across inspection, maternal health, infectious disease response and IT.
Simmer said federal grants make up about 47% of the department’s funding and that, to date, those grants have not been interrupted. He described a first‑priority package to strengthen health‑care facility safety: 22 new FTEs, funding for eight existing FTEs that were previously unfunded, and $4,600,000 recurring to reduce complaint response times and expand evening and weekend unannounced inspections. “Our goal is to have every complaint addressed within 30 days,” Simmer said, noting current response times range from about 50 to 77 days depending…
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