Senate Confirms NFLHE Board Member Joxel Garcia to White House Appointment to HHS
CHICAGO (March 20, 2008) – The U.S Senate has confirmed President George W. Bush’s nomination of Dr. Joxel Garcia, a member of the Board of Directors of the National Forum for Latino Healthcare Executives (NFLHE), as the Medical Director in the Regular Corps of the Public Health Service and Assistant Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
“The National Forum for Latino Healthcare Executives would like to thank the White House and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions for this nomination of Dr. Garcia and their hard work,” said Hank Hernandez, President and Chairman of the National Forum for Latino Healthcare Executives. “We would also like to acknowledge these efforts, which were led by Committee Chairman Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-CT), and others.”
Hernandez, who is also CEO of Las Palmas Medical Center in El Paso, TX, said, “Dr. Garcia is an inspiration to all of the NFLHE Board and we believe that in this role, Dr. Garcia will represent the best interest of the nation and every American.”
NFLHE works toward building and promoting a network of future health care leaders and seeks to foster discussion with respect to health policy and research agenda affecting the U.S. Latino communities. It’s a national organization led by senior executive health care leaders in the U.S. whose vision is to be a voice for their experience and of the diverse communities they serve. NFLHE supports executive leadership development and encourages Latino leadership representation on a national level.
Garcia is the Senior Vice President and Senior Medical Adviser for MAXIMUS Federal Services. In that capacity, Garcia leads a team with expertise in program management, public health administration and health education. Before that, he served as Deputy Director of the Pan American Health Organization in the Regional Office of WHO for the Western Hemisphere.
A clinician with expertise in health policy, administration and business, Garcia served as Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Public Health in 1999. Garcia did his pre-medical studies from the University of Puerto Rico, his MD from the Ponce School of Medicine and his MBA from the University of Hartford.
The U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health serves as the HHS secretary’s chief adviser on public health, oversees the U.S. Public Health Service and provides strategic and policy direction for the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Bush also sent Garcia’s nomination to the Senate to be the U.S. Representative on the Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO), which is pending in committee.
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The National Forum for Latino Healthcare Executives (NFLHE) is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the representation of Latinos at the executive level of U.S. hospitals and health systems. Based in Chicago, NFLHE works with industry leaders to increase the representation of Latinos in the executive ranks of U.S. hospitals, health systems and healthcare. NFLHE helps prepare the next generation of Latino healthcare executives to meet the challenges of the nation’s future and improve the healthcare for our communities. NFLHE also partners with government agencies to eliminate health disparities and direct the future of healthcare in the U.S.
For more information about the National Forum for Latino Healthcare Executives, please visit us on the web at nflhe.org.
