This week, President-elect Biden announced seven members of note to his health leadership team.

• California Attorney General Xavier Becerra will be Secretary of Health and Human Services. Becerra previously served in Congress and helped drive passage of the Affordable Care Act.
• Dr. Vivek Murthy has been nominated to serve as Surgeon General, a role he held under the Obama administration. He is a decorated physician, research scientist, and former Vice Admiral in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Dr. Murthy is a long-time advisor to Joe Biden and currently serves as a co-chair of the President-elect’s COVID-19 transition Advisory Board.
• Biden has selected Rochelle Walensky, Chief of Infectious Diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is one of the nation’s leading experts on virus testing and has worked on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic response in Massachusetts.
• Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith will serve as the COVID-19 Equity Task Force Chair. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine, Public Health, and Management at the Yale School of Medicine and founded Yale’s Equity Research and Innovation Center. She currently serves as co-chair of Biden’s COVID-19 transition Advisory Board and will advise the president-elect on a whole-of-government effort to reduce COVID-19 disparities in response, care, and treatment.
• Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, will be the Chief Medical Adviser to the President on COVID-19. He will also continue his role as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 
• Jeff Zients will serve as coordinator of the COVID-19 Response Team and Counselor to the President. Zients has expertise in crisis management, having previously served as Director of the National Economic Council, Acting Director and Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the inaugural Chief Performance Officer of the United States, and will advise the president-elect on the implementation of the federal government’s COVID-19 response.
• Natalie Quillian will be the Deputy National Coordinator of the COVID-19 Response Team. She is a national security expert and former White House and Pentagon senior advisor and helped coordinate the Obama-Biden administration’s response to the opioid epidemic.  

Several Emory leaders and experts know individuals listed above, and the OGCA team looks forward to working with these policy leaders to advance Emory’s mission in the 117th Congress. Click here to learn about some of Biden’s other high ranking selections.

DEI Kickoff Meeting

On December 1, the DeKalb Operating Unit (DOU) held a kickoff meeting for its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiative, which included presentations from EHC leadership as well as the three work group leads. OGCA team member, Kendra Price, is one of the triad team leaders for the community equity teams which include EDH, EHH, and ELTAC. The purpose of this initiative is to drive a culture of DEI within the operating units and establish leader standard work to support the EHC Care Transformation Model in the Decatur, Lithonia, and Stonecrest communities.