JudyAnn Bigby, M.D.

Secretary of Health and Human Services, Dr. JudyAnn Bigby, oversees 17 state agencies and serves in the Cabinet of Governor Deval Patrick. Her broad range of experience — as a primary care physician, professor, researcher and health policy expert — gives her unique insights into how the state can best serve the people of the Commonwealth.

One of Secretary Bigby’s top priorities is ensuring the state delivers high-quality and accessible services to Massachusetts residents. Some of the program areas she oversees include health care including the state’s Medicaid program; child welfare; public health; disabilities; veterans affairs; and elder affairs. Since her appointment, Secretary Bigby has successfully implemented many aspects of Massachusetts’ highly successful health care reform law. The state has adopted its first Olmstead Plan to address the long term needs of elders and persons with disabilities in community settings and she championed the creation of the Office of the Child Advocate to improve the state’s child welfare system.

Until her appointment, Dr. Bigby was the Medical Director of Community Health Programs at Brigham & Women's Hospital. She was also Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the school’s Center of Excellence in Women’s Health.

Prior to her appointment she served on many boards and expert panels including the Boston Public Health Commission, the Institute of Medicine’s Committee on Assuring the Health of the Public in the 21st Century, and the Minority Women’s Health Panel of Experts for the US Department of Health and Human Services. She was President of the Society of General Internal Medicine, the only national organization representing primary care internal medicine doctors, from 2003 to 2004.

Dr. Bigby holds a B.A. from Wellesley College and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. She lives in Jamaica Plain.