🔒Gifford guides CT through pandemic

Heading two key state healthcare agencies during a pandemic that has killed thousands is no easy feat, but Dr. Deidre S. Gifford is used to hard work.

“I’ve certainly been working hard, I haven’t been alone in that,” said Gifford, who headed the departments of Social Services and Public Health for much of 2021. “I trained as an OBGYN back in the late 80s and early 90s when you worked 36 hours, had one night off and then you worked 36 hours again.”

Gifford stresses she is part of a very large team. Decisions were made through careful deliberation with a long list of partners inside and outside of her agencies.

“It’s not really in my nature to claim credit, but in this case, it wouldn’t be appropriate,” Gifford said. “I was part of a very close team from the Governor’s office to the Department of Public Health to the Office of Policy and Management, the Department of Emergency Services, the Connecticut National Guard, the Department of Corrections, the Department of Housing … really, I could go on and on, not to mention our hospital partners.”

Under Gifford’s tenure, the state health department tightened controls over nursing homes. Frequent COVID-19 tests were required for patients and staff, with regular reports to state officials. Response teams were sent to COVID-19 hot spots. The tactic saw cases in nursing homes shrink dramatically.

Gifford continued as interim head of the state health agency until late September, when Dr. Manisha Juthani was appointed commissioner.

Gifford remains head of DSS, an agency that provides, among other assistance, medical insurance to nearly 1 million through the Husky program.

Through Nov. 26, 8,865 Connecticut residents died from COVID-19, according to state figures.

In July, Lamont tasked Gifford with the additional duty of senior advisor for health and human services. In that role Gifford helps state agencies collaborate to deliver more efficient, effective and equitable services.

“The thing that is different is we see that work in the light of the pandemic,” Gifford said. “So, our work has a much clearer mandate because of what we experienced through the pandemic, and we’ve seen the disparate impact of COVID on different populations. We’ve seen the places where the healthcare infrastructure needed to be shored up, so people had access to testing.”

Studies and simple statistics have shown radically different impacts of the pandemic on different racial groups. According to the latest analysis from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black and Latino individuals are at least 2.5 times as likely to die of COVID than white people.

The pandemic also saw demand for mental health services soar, Gifford said.

The Department of Social Services responded by increasing payments to hospitals for mental health, prompting care providers to add more inpatient beds, Gifford said.

“One of the problems we were seeing in emergency departments is kids were waiting a long time for an inpatient bed because they weren’t available,” Gifford said.

The state has increased funding for case management targeted at connecting children leaving inpatient mental health to services in their communities, Gifford said.

Gifford also helped oversee statewide vaccination efforts, where Connecticut has been a leader nationally. Through Dec. 6, 85% of the state’s eligible population received at least one vaccine dose while 72.8% received two doses, according to the New York Times.

Only five states had higher vaccination rates as of Dec. 6.

Rising to the challenge

As challenging as the pandemic has been, business restrictions were largely lifted by 2021, Gifford noted. Collaboration between state agencies, municipalities, hospitals and community health partners allowed the state to remain open even following COVID-19 waves, Gifford said.

Public cooperation was also key, with most people following guidance on masks and social distancing, Gifford said.

“We faced a great challenge and I think the state rose to the challenge in a lot of ways,” Gifford said.

Society, and state agencies, will have to accept COVID-19 as a fact of life through 2022 and beyond, Gifford said. But it’s a disease that’s manageable.

“I think with some of the antiviral treatments that are coming out and with advancements in vaccines, I think we will start to see, eventually, we can manage this in the same way we manage other periodic epidemics, like we do with influenza every year,” Gifford said.

Gifford says she’s looking forward to continuing working with other state commissioners to improve services in 2022.

“I came originally to the Department of Social Services to work on healthcare delivery and payment reform because that had been my background,” Gifford said. “A lot of that was put on pause out of necessity due to the pandemic. We had to put our focus elsewhere.”

The focus has shifted to preventive care and social factors in health outcomes, Gifford said.

In 2022, the state will expand postpartum care to a year for mothers enrolled in Husky. It will also expand healthcare coverage for undocumented children and offer no-cost health insurance to greater numbers through the state health exchange, Gifford said.

“I’m looking forward to innovation ... in the way we address our Husky program,” Gifford said.