Travis County Commissioners Court
March 4, 2008
Item 11
11. Consider and take appropriate action on the designation of philip p. Huang, m.d., m.p.h., as health authority and his designation of linda williams dooley, m.d., and edward macleod racht, m.d., each individually, as alternate health authority for Austin/Travis County health and human services department effective April 7, 2008.
>> good morning.
>> good morning, judge, commissions, sherri flemming executive manager for health and human services. As you know the state of Texas provides certain authority for you to provide public health services for the residents of Travis County. We do that through an interlocal agreement with the city of Austin. Part of that responsibility includes your approval of the designated health authority. So we are here today to request that approval and I will pass you over to david lurie the director of the Austin Travis County health and human services department.
>> good morning. We are happy to be here with you this morning. We have a medical director position responsible for overseeing all that we do from a medical perspective, making sure that we are in compliance with various regulations, quality standards, so forth. As part of that role for the medical director is to serve for the local health authority. By state statute this individual has authorities relating to quarantining individuals also responsible for reporting various infectious diseases and coordinating our community response to potential outbreaks. And within that state statute there is a requirement that the county board approve the appointment, the designation as local health authorities. So we are here this morning to request your approval of dr. Philip p. Huang, m.d., who comes to us from the state of Texas where he has served for the last 15 years in various medical leadership roles, primarily focused on chronic diseases. He also worked for a time for the centers for disease control and prevention in the area of epidemics, investigative work. He has that experience, also with chronic diseases. He's been in Austin for the last 15 years with the state, has his medical degree from the university of Texas southern medical school and also a master's in public health from harvard university. Harvard school of public health. He is very well recognized nationally and at the state level for the work he's done, we are really pleased that he wants to bring this experience and expertise to Travis County. This is a two-year designation. We need to renew every two years and we also have as judge Biscoe pointed out a couple of alternate health authorities, dr. Dooley and dr. Ract. We intended to include dr. Kimbro. We will probably bring that back, but this gives us a lot of depth in terms of medical coverage in terms of health authority role here. With that I would like to introduce dr. Huang. Maybe you would like to make a few comments.
>> good morning. Just like to say I’m really honored to have the opportunity to serve in this role. I look forward to working with you all and hope to hear if there's anything that I can do.
>> welcome.
>> >
>> [indiscernible]
>> move approval.
>> discussion? All in favor. That passes by unanimous vote.
>> welcome, looking forward to working with you.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 5, 2008 8:09 PM