863: ASTHO Capitol Hill Visits Critical

SUMMER JOHNSON: 

This is the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition for Friday, March 14, 2025. I'm Summer Johnson. Now, today's news from the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

As we continue our coverage from this week's ASTHO Spring Leadership meeting. We caught up with Dr. Daniel Edney. He's the state health officer for the Mississippi State Department of Health. We grabbed Dr. Edney as soon as he got done with his visits on Capitol Hill to see how it all went.

DANIEL EDNEY: 

Well, what's important for me is to make the Hill visits and in Mississippi, relationships are everything, and building those relationships that takes effort. It takes time. They don't happen organically, and it's more difficult at the federal level to have those relationships. So, making the Hill visits have taught me the ability to connect not just with the members, but with their staffs, which are really important, and for them to get to know who I am and to understand the resource for departments of health can be for them. And so as they're researching specific issues, such as rural emergency hospital designations, critical access hospital challenges, whatever it is for them, instead of them having to dig in, they can pivot to us as a trusted friend that we can do the research work for them and hand it to them. And that has been very effective over the last two years. So, the combination of meetings with members or their staff, either one, have been really productive for me, a State Health Officer.

JOHNSON: 

Going into those meetings on Capitol Hill, Did anything change your mind? What was your reaction to those?

EDNEY: 

Well, I needed to read the room here in Washington in terms of federal budget cuts, and as the State Department of Health, who is 70% dependent on federal funds, that's obviously a top priority for me as I work to reduce that dependency. And I was reassured that the Mississippi delegation understood the concerns of cutting areas of public health funding, whether it's the CDC or HRSA, or even though we don't advocate directly about Medicaid, Medicaid is extremely important for the population health of Mississippi, and understanding, helping them understand that when you reduce the FMAP percentage, that could be catastrophic for Mississippi hospitals, or certainly reducing down our match rate, how that would really negatively impact the health care infrastructure in Mississippi. So, oftentimes, raising the awareness of the broader perspective of things, and it's not all just cut and dry all the time, that was really helpful and was well-received today, and they absolutely got that, which reassures me that moving forward, even into the next budget cycle, that they understand the lion's share of CDC funding flows out to the states, so just because you're cutting a federal agency's budget that mean there not a lot of downstream consequences that impact the voters of Mississippi, and they did understand that, and so I was reassured that these members of our delegation really knew they needed to be really mindful of the negative impact to the population health of Mississippi with these health care cuts.

JOHNSON: 

What do you think the value is of first and foremost, the ASTHO Spring Leadership meeting, to come and attend that and collaborate in person. What's the value of that for you? And then, and then, I would imagine there's a value in being able to go with ASTHO to represent Mississippi and speak up on the Hill today.

EDNEY: 

It's one of the strengths of ASTHO in terms of what they bring to the table for me as a State Health Officer, and three years ago, when I was a brand new State Health Officer, it was critically important, because ASTHO was that resource to help bring me up to speed on how to do the job more effectively. And then it started cultivating relationships with my colleagues that I desperately needed, and it got me plugged in to the right networking among other State Health Officers, especially in regions four and six. And our relationships are strong and are important to me. The most important meeting I have every week is our region four/ six SHO call that we do by phone every Monday morning, and that's the first thing of my work week every week, and it gives me a lot of information and insight onwhat's going on in other states and what's important to my colleagues. And then I participated and completed the ASTHO Leadership Institute as a new State Health officer, which helped me tremendously. ASTHO has helped me to grow in my position, to grow in my leadership at the state level. And then just also, just resource after resource I was unaware of. We just-- the Department of Health just shepherded through a bill in our legislature that went through this week and became law that designated community health workers as official peer health professionals. Assigned it to the Department of Health to oversee and certify and for Medicaid to provide reimbursement. And I learned today that we have good work, and-- at ASTHO with CHWs, which I absolutely need right now. So, to be able to pull in the ASTHO team that's been working on CHWs longer than I have to help operationalize what we just had passed in law is just one of many examples where AASHTO has been really beneficial to me.

SUMMER JOHNSON: 

We will continue updating you on this newscast about ASTHO's, crucial legislative work in our nation's capital. So make sure you subscribe wherever you find your podcasts, so you never miss an episode and don't forget to sign up for ASTHO's Legislative Alerts. There's a link in the show notes.

A new ASTHO leadership series may be just what you need to take your management skills to the next level. O'Keyla Cooper has more.

O'KEYLA COOPER: 

The Essentials of Leadership and Management Workshop series, "Ignite, Accelerate, and Activate," kicks off, Wednesday, April 2, from 1:30-3:30 p.m. ET, Tailored for supervisors and managers in governmental public health agencies, this three-part series focuses on strengthening essential leadership skills. The first session focuses on helping participants develop strategic skills to improve self-awareness, decision-making ,and team performance. Register now through the link in the show notes.

JOHNSON: 

Finally, this morning, Dr. Sameer Vohra of Illinois closes out a busy week at the ASTHO Spring Leadership meeting in D.C. He said the collaboration was invaluable...

SAMEER VOHRA: 

Especially at a unique and challenging time like now, how important fellowship and engagement on a personal level, really is, [for] many of us from the outside. Like what does an Illinois have in common with an Alabama or a Nebraska? And the reality is that we have a ton of common things. And of course, in a state like Illinois, you have a big urban center like Chicago, but we have 102 unique counties, and we're all facing different types of urban, suburban and rural challenges, and to have common connections, but really help deal with the challenges. And what the ASTHO community brings is the ability to problem-solve in real time things that are often difficult when you're doing that on a virtual level, and to be able to be here to have those conversations, take those lessons learned, back to our home state. Meaningful every single time that there is a State Health Official convening.

JOHNSON: 

That'll do it for today, we're back Monday morning with more ASTHO news and information. I'm Summer Johnson. You're listening to the award-winning Public Health Review Morning Edition. Have a great weekend.