Department of Human Resources (1971-97) The NCDHHS has its origins in the former North Carolina Department of Human Resources (DHR). The DHR was created in 1971 as an umbrella to consolidate what had been more than 300 free-standing state agencies. It was activated as a functional agency on December 10, 1971. The first Secretary of Human Resources, Dr.
Lenox Baker, was appointed by Governor
Robert W. Scott. The Division of Public Health, an original part of the department, was taken out of the DHR in 1989. Most of its functions were transferred back to the DHR in 1997, when the agency was renamed the Department of Health and Human Services.
Medicaid system and abuse policy (2004-10) In April 2004, NCDHHS awarded
Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) a contract to replace the existing Medicaid Management Information System operated by
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Services. ACS was to complete the design by the summer of 2006, though the contract was terminated in July 2006 for delays. ACS filed a lawsuit against the state for
wrongful work termination, and the civil court case was settled in January 2007, with ACS agreeing to install an additional software suite to help
Medicaid generate savings. Two years later NCDHHS again attempted to replace their Medicaid computer system, awarding a $265 million contract to Computer Science Services in January 2009, with an August 2011 deadline for putting the system live. She dealt with multiple health crises in North Carolina including the
Opioid epidemic,
GenX in drinking water, and the
COVID-19 pandemic. Cohen navigated the political divide over Medicaid in North Carolina, with
Democratic governor Cooper wanting to expand it under the Affordable Care Act and the
Republican-majority
North Carolina State Legislature opposing such measures. The Department led North Carolina through a transition from free-for-service Medicaid to a model contracted by the state with private insurance companies that are paid pre-determined rates to provide health services.
COVID-19 pandemic Cohen stressed the need for North Carolinians to wear face masks, practice social distancing, and wash their hands in order to prevent the spread of
COVID-19. In March 2020 she sent a letter to the president of the
2020 Republican National Convention, asking for detailed plans on how the convention would operate during the COVID-19 pandemic after President
Donald Trump published a series of
tweets threatening to pull the convention out of North Carolina. She said that she had concerns about teacher safety if schools were to re-open amidst the pandemic, but was confident in studies showing that the virus has minimal health consequences on younger children, saying that schools "have not played a significant role in the spreading of COVID-19." She met with
William L. Roper, president of the
University of North Carolina, to discuss how to resume in-person instruction for students at North Carolina's public colleges and universities. She warned of the state possibly returning to a
stay-at-home order. She had also linked North Carolina's rise in cases with the reopening of the state. Cohen indicated that there would be a test surge in areas with troubling metrics. ==References==