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You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition - January 11, 2017
Trump Administration (first term)  Vice President Mike Pence Cabinet • White House staff • Transition team • Trump's second term |
Domestic affairs: Abortion • Crime and justice • Education • Energy and the environment • Federal courts • Firearms policy • First Amendment • Healthcare • Immigration • Infrastructure • LGBTQ issues • Marijuana • Puerto Rico • Social welfare programs • Veterans • Voting issues Economic affairs and regulations: Agriculture and food policy • Budget • Financial regulation • Jobs • Social Security • Taxes • Trade Foreign affairs and national security: Afghanistan • Arab states of the Persian Gulf • China • Cuba • Iran • Iran nuclear deal • Islamic State and terrorism • Israel and Palestine • Latin America • Military • NATO • North Korea • Puerto Rico • Russia • Syria • Syrian refugees • Technology, privacy, and cybersecurity |
| Polling indexes: Opinion polling during the Trump administration |
This is the January 11, 2017, edition of an email sent from November 2016 to September 2017 that covered Donald Trump's presidential transition, cabinet appointees, and the different policy positions of those individuals who may have had an effect on the new administration. Previous editions of "You're Hired" can be found here.
As of January 11, 2017, President-elect Donald Trump had officially announced 14 of 15 Cabinet nominations. See his nominees here.
Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony concerning attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions. Rex Tillerson, nominee for secretary of state, went before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and Elaine Chao, nominee for secretary of transportation, was scheduled to appear before the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. President-elect Trump also held a press conference, his first since July 2016.
We will cover today’s confirmation hearings in more detail tomorrow.
Nominee announcements
David Shulkin
Today, President-elect Trump said that he intends to nominate David Shulkin, current undersecretary for health at the Department of Veterans Affairs, to become the next secretary of veterans affairs. Shulkin received his medical degree from the Medical College of Pennsylvania.
In our December 21, 2016, edition, we took at look at the department and Trump’s stances on issues related to veterans. You can read that here.
Below, we outline some of Shulkin’s experience in the healthcare sector and in veterans affairs.
Healthcare executive experience
- President of Morristown Medical Center
- President of Goryeb Children’s Hospital
- President of Atlantic Rehabilitation Institute
- President of Atlantic Health System Accountable Care Organization
- President of New York's Beth Israel Medical Center
- Chief medical officer for Temple University Hospital
- Chief medical officer for the University of Pennsylvania Health System
- Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Drexel University
During his medical career, Shulkin focused his work in primary patient care, and he worked as a health systems executive to increase patient care initiatives.
- In 2008, when he was CEO of New York's Beth Israel Medical Center, Shulkin began rethinking the hospital’s approach to night shift staffing and patient care. He published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine arguing that hospital executives should more regularly evaluate quality of care during the night shift hours. He told The Wall Street Journal, “[T]here is always a process in place to make sure a patient's needs are met at any hour, and that goes all the way up to the CEO of the hospital.”
- In 2011, when he was president of Morristown Medical Center in New Jersey, Shulkin started a primary care practice, Primary Care Partners, with 15 other physicians. The idea, Shulkin said, was to create a more efficient system of primary care by sharing technology between physicians. Of the practice’s goals, Shulkin said, “There are new ways of thinking about how we have to manage populations of patients. … If we don't have a robust primary care community, we are never going to achieve any of the goals that most of us are hoping for the country.”
Experience at the VA
- Shulkin was nominated in March 2015 and approved as undersecretary for health in June, and he was tasked with running the VA’s nationwide hospital system. At the time, the VA was still responding to claims that long wait times for healthcare at VA facilities had been covered up by the department.
- He has stressed the need for further collaboration between the private sector and the VA health system. In May 2016, he said, “We provide a different model of care, which treats the physical along with the psychological, the social, and the economic aspects of health, all of which contribute to the well-being of the patient. … It's become clear that the VA alone can't meet all of the health-care needs of veterans. We have to work more closely with the private sector.”
- In June 2016, Shulkin commented on some of the modifications he had helped install in the VA’s healthcare system. He said that they had focused on analytics to help better understand which patients needed urgent care, instituting telehealth services for veterans in more remote areas, and a greater emphasis on leadership training for VA employees.
See also
- You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition
- Donald Trump presidential transition team
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