The Texas Board of Health and Human Services announced Sept. 8 that John Hellerstedt, director of the State Department of Health Services (DSHS) for 14 years, will be stepping down at the end of the month.
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Dr. John William Hellerstedt
Hellerstedt, who has headed the department since 2016, will resign from his state post effective September 30.
His successor is the state’s chief epidemiologist, Dr. Jennifer Shufordwas appointed Interim Commissioner following the announcement of Hellerstedt’s retirement.
After earning a M.D. degree from the University of Pittsburgh and completing a General Pediatrics residency at the University of Texas San Antonio Health Science Center, Hellerstedt moved to Austin in 1981 and practiced office-based general pediatrics for 18 years at the Austin Regional Clinic. Did. .
Hellerstedt entered public service in 2000 with the Department of Health as Medical Director for the Medicaid Managed Care and CHIP Office.
The following year, he became the medical director of the Texas Board of Health and Human Services’ Medicaid CHIP division. He was awarded Child Advocate of the Year in 2007 by the Texas Academy of Pediatrics.
Hellerstedt has a lasting legacy of spearheading the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic.and keynote speech At the 2022 Texas Reform Health Policy Conference in March, Hellerstedt spoke about the effectiveness of the state’s measures to address the public health crisis.
“What should we look back on? [DSHS] I realized and understood how successful it was,” Hellerstedt said. “It hurt a lot. But because we are here, we can say that we are successful. As we all know, it’s about making available the goods and services that are essential to keeping society running. It was actually effective if we hadn’t taken the measures that we did… the same way we could have done.”
