RADM Collins has been named the HHS Acting Asst Secretary of Health on January 20, 2021.
She was appointed as Acting Director of the Office of Minority Health on November 19, 2018.
RADM Collins most recently served at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), where she held the position of Senior Advisor in the Bureau of Primary Health Care (BPHC). In this role she provided guidance to HRSA Project Officers and Managers to support their analyses of Federally-funded health centers’ clinical submissions and ultimately promotes health centers’ provision of high quality health care to vulnerable populations. She also provided leadership in establishing and/or enhancing BPHC’s clinical quality policies and electronic systems and works with Division Managers to identify and met non-clinical operational needs.
Previously, Dr. Collins served at the Food and Drug Administration where she reviewed pediatric drug development and labeling plans to help ensure efficacy and safety of drugs for children. During a prior tour of duty at HRSA, Dr. Collins led staff that managed clinical quality assurance/risk management programs for Federally-funded health centers (e.g., accreditation, clinical risk management, medical malpractice insurance coverage). She also worked to improve the collection of health centers’ clinical data for quality improvement and administrative purposes, and she provided leadership within HRSA regarding the elimination of health disparities. Dr. Collins has served as a legislative aide for the Congressional Caucus for Women’s Issues of the U.S. House of Representatives and as an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
Dr. Collins received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1995, and completed a residency in primary care pediatrics at Children’s Hospital in Boston, MA in 1998. She received her M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health as a CFHU Fellow in 1999.
The CFHUF provided me with not only academic public health/health policy training but with resources for living everyday life. It introduced me to fellowship alumni and an administrator who cared enough to leave their families early one June morning to pack the truck that would carry me to new adventures away from Boston. It led me to my first health policy job because a senior governmental official believed in the CFHUF and the fellows it trained. It provided me with personal medical consultants when I needed to advocate for my own health care needs during a life threatening situation or when I questioned the potential of future medical sequlae afterwards. It has provided me with life-long friends and mentors who continually remind me to “always be looking for a new job,” “pray about it and follow your heart,” never be too busy to “talk story,” and never forget the community of “people we serve”—it is for them that we seek to bring about “a revolution” in health care. My unending thanks to Joan, Karen Davis and Karen Scott Collins, and the many, many others who are now a permanent part of my life resources.