Sandra Shewry

Sandra Shewry, M.P.H., M.S.W., is an advisor on health reform implementation to the California Health and Human Services Agency. She is the former director of California's State Department of Health Services (DHS), one of the largest state departments with a budget of $32 billion and 6,000 employees. Ms. Shewry administers public health, education, disease-prevention, and health protection programs for 35 million Californians. She administers the State's Medicaid Program (Medi-Cal) providing health care services to more than six million individuals annually. Prior to joining DHS in 2004, Ms. Shewry was the director of health at the National Governor's Association's (NGA) Center for Best Practices, where she directed research, analysis, technical assistance, and resource development on a broad range of health financing, service delivery, and policy issues. Areas of focus included containing health care costs, health insurance trends, public health leadership, chronic disease prevention and management, childhood obesity, aging and long-term care, rural health, mental health and substance abuse, and health workforce issues. In 2004, NGA's Health Division focused on the Chairman's Initiative: Long Term-Care and Aging and Lifetime of Health and Dignity. Ms. Shewry earned graduate degrees in public health and social welfare from the University of California at Berkeley.