PO Box 360
Trenton, NJ 08625-0360

For Release:
March 8, 2018

Shereef Elnahal
Acting Commissioner

For Further Information Contact:
Office of Communications
(609) 984-7160

Acting Commissioner Nominee Shereef Elnahal, M.D., M.B.A. Senate Judiciary Committee Testimony

Good morning,

 

Chairman Scutari, Vice Chairwoman Gill, and distinguished members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

 

I’ve had great meetings with many of you and I appreciate learning more about what you believe are the most critical issues facing New Jersey.

I am honored that Governor Murphy has nominated me to lead the Department of Health. Protecting the public health, improving the quality and safety of health care, and ensuring healthier outcomes for all New Jersey residents is a tremendous responsibility.

I would like to take a moment to introduce the members of my family who are here with me today. First and foremost, my wife Marwa who his 9 months pregnant with our second child, …

 

As all of you know, the health challenges that many of New Jersey’s citizens face could not be more pressing. Too many in New Jersey suffer from opioid addiction and other serious health conditions, with recovery so hard for themselves and their loved ones. Too many of our state’s citizens who depend on mental health care find it difficult to get the support they need from qualified health professionals. The disparities in New Jersey around infant mortality, maternal mortality, lead exposure, and other public health risks are embarrassingly high. Access to women’s health care has been compromised in our state for too long. New Jersey’s medicinal marijuana program is in dire need of reform in order to meet the needs of many New Jersey residents who could benefit. And finally, too many New Jerseyans struggle to pay medical bills—whether it’s high monthly insurance premiums or surprise, out-of-pocket costs.

 

Needless to say, we have much work ahead to improve New Jersey’s public health.

Our health care delivery landscape also continues to evolve. New Jersey is increasingly seeing health care mergers that cross state lines. That means the Health Department must be a vigilant partner in these transactions to ensure health care quality and patient safety is maintained and enhanced.

 

Although being New Jersey’s Acting Health Commissioner has been a new and exciting endeavor, I have seen these challenges before. I’ve seen them while wearing three distinct, but equally important “hats”—as a patient, as a physician, and as a policy maker.

 

My first hat—a patient. I was diagnosed with Type I diabetes when I was 12 years old, and needless to say, it has defined so much of my life. From day one with this condition, I depended on the unwavering support of my family—supportive parents who would yell at me when I didn’t take my insulin. I depended on access to qualified health professionals—a nurse practitioner who drilled how to count carbs into my 12 year old brain. I depended on having quality, affordable insurance—a plan that didn’t surprise me at the pharmacy or after an ER visit with costs that I couldn’t afford. And despite being blessed with all of this support, I have still had my fair share of hard times as a patient. Too many people in New Jersey suffer from similar or worse afflictions—opioid addiction, mental health conditions, homelessness—and do not have access to what I have depended on my entire life. So I know what it means when Governor Murphy and many of you in the legislature have said that health care is a basic human right—for me, that belief is personal.

 

My second hat—a physician. When I first became a medical resident, I immediately noticed that despite the best intentions and exceptional skills of my fellow health professionals, the systems of care around us were letting patients fall through the cracks. Patients with diseases as serious as pancreatic cancer cannot afford to encounter a system that is inefficient or does not support its professionals—getting treatment quickly is everything for them. That is why I worked with everyone from front-line staff to hospital presidents to cut patient wait times and keep folks out of the emergency room by better addressing their problems in clinic. I knew just how important that work was because patients were the ones telling me—and that is also what patients who come through New Jersey clinics and hospitals deserve.

 

And my third hat—a manager and policy maker. It was an honor and a privilege to serve America’s veterans with my work at the United States Department of Veteran’s Affairs. After the VA’s crisis several years ago, I felt a calling to take what I had done in other hospitals and offer it to the VA, first as a White House Fellow and then as a health system executive. In my time there, we scaled models of care that worked to treat and prevent opioid addiction, expand access to primary and mental health care, advance reproductive and women veterans’ health care, and increase the use of advanced directives and palliative care for veterans near the end of life. We also transparently posted all of our performance data for use by every veteran and their loved ones—to empower them to make their own decisions about where they’d like to receive care. Everybody in New Jersey deserves to benefit from these best practices, and I will work tirelessly, and in partnership with the delivery system and community stakeholders and organizations, to deliver them.

 

Before coming here, I left a job that has allowed me to be part of how we, as a nation, repay the sacrifice that our men and women in uniform offer all of us every day. And now, I am bringing what veterans have taught me home to New Jersey, with an expectation that New Jersey will teach me a thing or two about how to make government work for people. As I told hundreds of Department of Health staff at a town hall on my fourth day as Acting Commissioner, we are poised to do great things. Governor Murphy and I want the Department to be a driver in expanding access to culturally competent and high-quality health care.

 

These issues are also especially important to the Department’s new leadership team. My chief of staff, principal deputy, and deputy commissioner all have young children and are committed to achieving better health outcomes for New Jersey residents.

 

I want to conclude by emphasizing how much New Jersey means to me and my family. When my parents immigrated to the United States from Egypt, they chose to settle in South Jersey, because that is where they were able to become trained physicians, and where they spent their entire professional lives treating fellow residents of Atlantic County. It is there that they raised my siblings and me. It is there that I learned the true meaning of family, community, state, and patriotism. That is why there would be no greater honor for me than to be confirmed as your next Health Commissioner, knowing full well that it may be the greatest repayment I could offer to a state that has given us so much.

Senate Judiciary members, thank you for considering my nomination. And now, I would be happy to answer your questions.

Last Reviewed: 3/8/2018