Meet the ‘change agent’ responsible for revamping the CDC

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky has tapped Mary Wakefield — an Obama administration veteran and nurse — to helm a significant revamp of the sprawling company and its multibillion-dollar funds. Making the adjustments would require successful over cautious profession CDC scientists, combative members of Congress, and a common public that in lots of instances has stopped trying to the company for steerage.

“If she will’t repair it, she’ll say, ‘It is not fixable, here is why, and here is what must be achieved subsequent,'” mentioned Eileen Sullivan-Marx, dean of the New York College Rory Meyers School of Nursing, who’s recognized Wakefield professionally for many years.

Different former colleagues mentioned Wakefield’s expertise as a nurse, congressional staffer, coverage wonk, and administrator give her the perspective and management instruments to rise to the event, at the same time as they acknowledged the magnitude of the job forward.

“She has excessive requirements, and he or she’ll count on folks to carry out,” mentioned Brad Gibbens, a former worker and appearing director of the Middle for Rural Well being at the College of North Dakota Faculty of Medication and Well being Sciences. “She’s very reasonable, however it’s good to know what you are doing.”Wakefield must navigate tough waters in the wake of a sequence of missteps by the company. The CDC botched the covid testing rollout early in the pandemic, issued complicated steerage on prevention measures corresponding to masking and quarantining, and has been gradual to launch scientific findings on the fast-moving virus.

Walensky has careworn that, as a part of the reset, she needs the CDC to provide Individuals clear, correct, and well timed steerage on group well being threats.

“I’m assured that the appointment of Mary Wakefield shall be instrumental in conducting our targets to modernize and optimize CDC,” Walensky mentioned in a written assertion. “It’s clear that Mary is an action-oriented chief who can lead efficient change.”

Following an inside audit, Walensky introduced plans to restructure how the company communicates with the public, to eradicate bureaucratic redundancies, and to assist the CDC higher work together with different elements of the federal authorities.

Wakefield’s first day on the job was in mid-August. She declined to talk to KHN for this piece, however those that know her painted a wealthy image of her administration philosophy and elegance.

NYU’s Sullivan-Marx mentioned Wakefield’s expertise as a nurse makes her effectively suited to resolve the complicated set of issues dealing with the CDC, which she in comparison with a affected person in want of stabilization.

“Whenever you take a look at somebody in a mattress in intensive care, all you see are beeps and features and screens going off — folks transferring out and in like a prepare station,” mentioned Sullivan-Marx. “The nurse is central to that for the affected person, pulling all of that collectively.”

Sullivan-Marx additionally mentioned Wakefield’s perspective as a front-line well being care employee may assist the CDC higher perceive how clinicians will obtain and interpret its pointers and suggestions.

For many of the Obama administration, Wakefield led the Well being Assets and Providers Administration. HRSA, a division of the Division of Well being and Human Providers, is responsible for a large portfolio of packages, those who serve folks dwelling with HIV, present compensation for folks injured by vaccination, and doc disciplinary motion towards well being care suppliers.

Former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius referred to as Wakefield a “change agent” who was capable of win the belief of HRSA employees members, lots of whom are full-time staff, not political appointees.

“Of us understood that they had been there earlier than she got here in and so they’d be there after she left,” Sebelius mentioned. “They needed to be satisfied that she was chief and so they had been going to comply with her. That is fairly vital, that she did so effectively in that company.”

(Sebelius is a member of KFF’s Board of Trustees. KHN is KFF’s editorially unbiased newsroom.)Sebelius mentioned such expertise might be useful to Wakefield at the CDC, which employs simply over 12,000 folks, a few of whom might be skeptical of adjustments. Covid was a severe stress check for the CDC, leaving some staffers questioning if it had misplaced its means.Sebelius additionally famous as a plus Wakefield’s expertise working with the CDC as appearing deputy secretary of HHS. She was nominated to be deputy secretary however by no means confirmed due to political squabbles over abortion.

Particulars about adjustments coming at the CDC are nonetheless trickling out, although prime brass have mentioned they will want the help of Congress to implement them.

Sheila Burke, head of public coverage at the regulation agency Baker Donelson, received to know Wakefield whereas working in Congress. She mentioned Wakefield’s expertise on Capitol Hill will turn out to be useful when coping with lawmakers who sit on committees that oversee the CDC.

“She’ll be keenly conscious of the function of the members who care deeply about these points,” Burke mentioned.

Prime well being officers have had a tough time justifying the federal authorities’s pandemic response to sure members of Congress. Walensky and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Biden administration’s lead medical adviser, who will quickly step down, confronted intense questioning from legislators on a number of events.

“I believe she’s uniquely positioned to grasp the way you navigate that relationship,” Burke mentioned of Wakefield.

A number of former staff pointed to what Gibbens, from the College of North Dakota, characterised as Wakefield’s “infatigable quantity of power.” He mentioned it wasn’t unusual for him to reach at work to cellphone messages she’d left him at 4:30 in the morning.

He described Wakefield as somebody who is aware of “when any individual is attempting to play her.” However he additionally mentioned she would not take herself too significantly. He recalled a kitschy animatronic speaking fish on her workplace wall, a nod to her love of fishing. And the time she declined to fly on Air Drive Two from Washington, D.C., to North Dakota, selecting to take a business flight “like an everyday individual.”

“She mentioned, ‘You gotta be actually cautious with that stuff. You do not wish to get used to that,'” Gibbens recalled.

The work forward for Wakefield might be a stress check of her perception in the human worth of public coverage. Walensky has mentioned the adjustments she hopes to implement at the CDC will not occur in a single day, and it is seemingly they will not be simple.

Very similar to the CDC in the present second, in 2005 Wakefield discovered herself at a doable turning level. That 12 months, Wakefield’s brother and two of his kids had been killed in a automotive accident that significantly injured her sister-in-law and younger nephew.

“Well being coverage as a focal space of my work earlier than, now felt of little or no consequence,” Wakefield wrote at the time in the Journal of Forensic Nursing.

Then she obtained phrase that her former boss, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), had joined with others to introduce the Wakefield Act, a invoice aimed toward bettering emergency medical care for children. Although it did not cross, it reminded Wakefield that pulling the levers of presidency can have real-life penalties.

“They acknowledged my household’s loss and put their help behind laws that may have an effect on the lives of kids of different households who might have an opportunity at survival,” Wakefield wrote. “Public coverage is essential — is not it?”

Correction: This story has been up to date to accurately replicate the standing of Mary Wakefield’s nursing license. She nonetheless holds an lively nursing license.

KHN (Kaiser Well being Information) is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points. Along with Coverage Evaluation and Polling, KHN is one in all the three main working packages at KFF (Kaiser Household Basis). KFF is an endowed nonprofit group offering info on well being points to the nation.