Reuters: Mary Wakefield, a nurse who heads that university's Center for Rural Health, was chosen to head the Health Resources and Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, the White House said.
The agency will oversee the outlay of $2.5 billion in the economic stimulus bill signed by Obama this week for training healthcare professionals and improving the nation's healthcare infrastructure.
The agency's main job is to improve access to healthcare services for people without medical insurance and others, as well as improving health care systems in rural communities.
People in rural areas often have poor access to quality health services because they live far from major hospitals.
In 2005, the Emergency Medical Services for Children Act of 2005 was dubbed the Wakefield Act:
Nurses Week: On April 11, 2005, senators Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii); Orrin Hatch (R-Utah); Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.); Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.); Mike Dewine (R-Ohio); and Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) introduced S. 760, the “Emergency Medical Services for Children Act of 2005” (EMSC), otherwise known as “The Wakefield Act.” This bill honors the Wakefield family and would amend the Public Health Service Act to provide a means for continued improvement in emergency medical services for children. The original bill, authorized in 1984, was developed primarily to treat trauma and cardiac patients and overlooked injured children.
The “Wakefield Act” offers specialized training for emergency care providers and ensures ambulance and emergency departments have state-of-the-art, pediatric-sized equipment. The EMSC is the proposed vehicle for improving survival of our smallest citizens when accidents or medical emergencies threaten their lives. Its intent is to foster collaborative relationships among emergency medical technicians (EMT), paramedics, nurses, emergency physicians, surgeons, and pediatricians. Read more about Wakefield here
