Dr. Debra Bogen, head of the Allegheny County Health Department, has been nominated as Pennsylvania’s secretary of health.
Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro announced Dr. Bogen’s appointment Wednesday, along with four other nominations, all of whom will need Senate confirmation.
Dr. Bogen began her role in Allegheny County in early 2020, and her profile was raised immediately as the face of the county’s COVID-19 response at the outset of and throughout the pandemic.
“In Allegheny County, we’ve brought people together to expand access to clinical care, advocate for family and child health, and protect the most vulnerable. I am excited to advance the Shapiro Administration’s agenda and to make evidence-informed decisions to improve the health and wellbeing of all of our residents,” Dr. Bogen said.
At Wednesday’s public Board of Health meeting, Dr. Bogen was praised by her colleagues and received a round of applause. The respect went both ways.
“I just want to thank you all for the support you’ve provided,” said Dr. Bogen at the bi-monthly meeting that just happened to be scheduled for the day her appointment was announced. She praised the support provided by the executive team. “We have wonderful leaders,” she said.
“I just thank you for this opportunity. It totally has been incredible,” Dr. Bogen said of her time heading up ACHD.
“We are so proud of Dr. Bogen and thrilled to see this next step in her extraordinary career,” County Executive Rich Fitzgerald said in a statement. “When we announced her hiring in early 2020, none of us could have expected that COVID would be upon us so quickly.”
Dr. Bogen has been a prominent figure in Western Pennsylvania’s medical community for decades, including holding a primary academic appointment as professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, and secondary appointments in psychiatry and clinical and translational science.
"She has all the qualifications and talent and skills to serve in the administration well,” Dr. Donald Yealy, chief medical officer for UPMC, said of her nomination. “I've gotten to know her very closely over the past three years, and seen that she is passionate, smart, flexible and really committed to making sure people are as healthy as they can be, and not to other agendas."
Among the medical experts ushering UPMC through the pandemic response, Dr. Yealy said Dr. Bogen has been an active participant of their team.
“I couldn't think of a better, more outstanding person to fill that role,” said Dr. Maureen Lichtveld, dean of the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Public Health, pointing out the importance that Dr. Bogen is both a physician and someone with a background in public health.
Because of public health's focus on prevention as well as intervention, "we actually will save the state a lot of money" by catching people before they need expensive treatment, Dr. Lichtveld said.
Fitzgerald, in the statement, referenced the “dozens and dozens” of notables at the ACHD under Dr. Bogen’s leadership, even as she oversaw the county’s response to COVID-19.
“And while she led that massive response, she continued growing and building the Health Department to ensure ongoing public health education, compilation of vital health statistics, surveilling and controlling communicable diseases, enforcing environmental regulations, and many other programs that protect and improve the health of the county’s residents,” Fitzgerald said.
“It has been an honor and a pleasure to work with her. We are grateful for her dedication to public health and her many accomplishments in Allegheny County,” said Dr. Edith Shapira, who co-chaired the ACHD’s director search that led to Dr. Bogen. “I am excited for her, and confident that she will do wonderful work at the state level."
Filling out his cabinet
Shapiro highlighted his intention of bringing individuals on board to his administration who were representatives of the entire state and points out these five nominees are experienced leaders from the western, northeastern and southeastern parts of Pennsylvania.
“The health and safety of our communities is of the utmost importance, and I’m proud to nominate tested leaders like Dr. Val Arkoosh, Dr. Debra Bogen, Dr. Latika Davis-Jones, Jason Kavulich, and Mike Humphreys to key cabinet posts in my Administration – they are well qualified public servants who are passionate about public health and ready to get to work on day one,” Shapiro said in a statement.
In addition to Dr. Bogen, the appointments are:
- Dr. Val Arkoosh as secretary of human services;
- Jason Kavulich as secretary of aging;
- Dr. Latika Davis-Jones as secretary of drug & alcohol programs;
- and Mike Humphreys as secretary of insurance
Dr. Arkoosh, 62, is an anesthesiologist who led Pennsylvania's third-most populous county through the pandemic before mounting a failed run for U.S. Senate.
She is a former chair of anesthesiology at Drexel University College of Medicine who now chairs the three-member board of commissioners in Montgomery County, in suburban Philadelphia.
On Montgomery County's board, Dr. Arkoosh overlapped with Mr. Shapiro for two years before he was elected to attorney general.
“As a physician and public health advocate, I spent my career fighting for health care access and affordability for families, and I am deeply honored to be able to continue this fight alongside my friend, Governor-Elect Josh Shapiro,” Dr. Arkoosh said.
During the pandemic, Dr. Arkoosh held daily, livestreamed briefings about the county's efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19, as it became the first county where Gov. Tom Wolf ordered the shutdown of schools and businesses.
Dr. Arkoosh ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2014 and was prominent before that in campaigning publicly for passage of then-President Barack Obama’s health care law, the Affordable Care Act. She again ran in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, but dropped her candidacy in February before filing paperwork to get on the ballot.
The Department of Human Services administers more than $50 billion in state and federal money, or about half of all the money that flows through Pennsylvania's state government every year.
Much of the money is tied to the Medicaid program, the federal-state partnership that provides medical care for the poor, long-term care for the elderly and direct care for the disabled. In particular, the growing elderly population and the growing cost to care for them has rapidly driven up the program's costs.
The department also runs the county assistance offices around the state, administers the federal food stamps program and distributes billions of dollars to counties and nonprofit agencies for child welfare services, child care subsidies and mental health counseling and assessment services.
A Pittsburgh native, Dr. Davis-Jones currently serves as the senior director of behavioral health at Highmark Wholecare. She previously worked at the Allegheny County Department of Human Services as its administrator of the Bureau of Drug and Alcohol Services after running a drug and alcohol counseling program in Pittsburgh. She has served as an adjunct professor at University of Pittsburgh, had provided testimony before state House and Senate committees and has been recognized for her work with people in addiction recovery and their families.
Dr. Davis-Jones said, “As Secretary of DDAP, I will work diligently to advance the Governor-Elect’s agenda by expanding education, intervention, treatment [and] recovery support programs across the commonwealth. Governor-Elect Shapiro has said he believes addiction is a chronic disease – and the department will put in the work to make sure every Pennsylvanian can get access to the treatment they need.”
Kavulich, who currently serves as Lackawanna County director of the Area Agency on Aging, said, “I know that too often our seniors are making impossible choices between meeting basic needs and staying in their home or paying for their prescriptions. Our seniors deserve better – that’s why I’m looking forward to leading the Shapiro Administration’s work to develop programs to ease the burdens felt by our commonwealth’s seniors, working with our commonwealth’s 52 AAAs to expand access to home and community-based services.”
He brings 21 years of experience in the human services field, progressing from caseworker to administrator positions at the Lackawanna County Office of Youth and Family Services to his current post.
Also nominated Wednesday was Humphreys, who has served in senior positions in the Department of Insurance for over three years and as acting commissioner since February. “Every Pennsylvanian, no matter where they live, deserves to have access to equitable, affordable health care — and I’m proud of our work to expand access to high-quality, affordable health insurance plans in Pennsylvania and to ensure such plans provide fair and robust mental health coverage protections.”
In his work for the department, Humphreys has worked closely with Pennie, the state-based health insurance exchange, to provide affordable coverage for many Pennsylvanians. He also is continuing work begun by his predecessor in implementing the federal No Surprises Act, which went into effect last January, to protect patients from surprise medical bills.
Hanna Webster and PennLive.com contributed to this report.
First Published: January 11, 2023, 2:29 p.m.
Updated: January 12, 2023, 11:05 a.m.
