EIPA Honors NJDOH Commissioner Judith Persichilli: The Nurse “Broke the Fever”
Early Intervention Champion Award
September 6, 2023, speech of Patricial Carlesimo, ED LADACIN Network, Vice President of the ABCD Board and Chair of the EIPA
For as long as she can remember, Judith Persichilli wanted to be a nurse.
Judith Persichilli, R.N., B.S.N., M.A. is the 22nd Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Health for the State of New Jersey, joining Governor Murphy’s cabinet in August 2019. Prior to her nomination the list of career accomplishments was long and formidable.
- Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of University Hospital in Newark.
- President Emerita of CHE Trinity Health
- President and CEO of Catholic Health East
- Executive Vice President of the Mid-Atlantic Division of CHE
- CEO at St. Francis Medical Center in Trenton
- ICU Nurse
In each position, she met the challenge not only of strong leadership and sound management, but she did so while never losing her focus on the patients, the community and the most vulnerable.
With decades of experience in health care, Commissioner Persichilli led New Jersey through the COVID-19 pandemic, a job that tested her at every turn, with a steady calm demeaner and dogged determination. While guiding the state through the most critical public health crisis in more than a century, she accomplished something else that was also unprecedented, challenging, and borderline herculean. Prior to her tenure, Eary Intervention providers had suffered countless funding inequities and financial burdens since the transition to the fee-for-service methodology in 2002 which included the failure of the state to raise the rates for over a decade and a half, risking the life altering service delivery system for infants and toddlers with developmental disabilities and delays. Though Early Intervention always had strong internal support within the department, it needed committed executive leadership. It took a nurse to “break the fever.” And break it she did – three times. Despite the fact that early intervention was not recommended for an increase in the Governor’s proposed FY’22 and FY’24 Budget, only because of the commissioner’s efforts did we receive unprecedented increases in July 1, 2021, January 1, 2022 and July 1, 2023, totaling 15% — She played a core role in the current and future lives of the infants, toddlers and families we serve.
Commissioner Persichilli believes that health care “is not only about life and death, but all of the facilities and the care that someone needs over a lifespan. That basic understanding allowed me to focus on the things that are important – access to care and access to quality of care.”
Ms. Persichilli received her nursing diploma from the St. Francis Hospital School of Nursing, a Bachelor of Science in Nursing summa cum laude from Rutgers University and a Master of Arts in Administration summa cum laude from Rider University.
We are honored to bestow the Early Intervention Champion Award to Commissioner Judith Persichilli.
