Countywide Healthcare Planning
Janet Perkins, MPP, Director

Ms. Perkins joins the Miami-Dade County leadership with nearly 20 years of experience in public health strategic planning, organizational management and applied research.  Beginning her career as a women’s health specialist, Ms. Perkins initially worked for the United Nations Fund for Population, the Pan American Health Organization (WHO) and the Inter-American Development Bank serving on teams developing health systems in Guyana and Colombia, among other countries.

Returning to domestic public health systems reform nearly 15 years ago, Ms. Perkins initially served as the Director of the National Health and Education Council, a Congressionally-established sub-commission that carried applied research and developed strategies for improving infants’ physical development and learning potential. Building on her international systems’ reform experience, in the early 1990s Ms. Perkins joined the staff of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as a Senior Program Officer for Region VI, where she was responsible for oversight and technical assistance for projects under the newly-established Community Integrated Service Systems program (CISS). Ms. Perkins left the federal service to become Deputy Director for the Prince Georges’ County Maternal and Child Health agency providing planning and oversight of the County’s women and children’s health clinics and school-based health centers.

In April of 1999, Ms. Perkins was appointed by the Mayor of the District of Columbia as Senior Advisor for Health and Director of the Department of Health for Policy, Research, Planning and Evaluation. During her tenure with the District, Janet Perkins played a core role in transitioning the community’s decaying public hospital and clinical system into a nationally-recognized health program for the uninsured. Ms. Perkins also spearheaded an inter-agency initiative to build an integrated and comprehensive case management system of multi-risk families and individuals. Living and working in one of the nation’s focal points for terrorism has also developed Ms. Perkins’ expertise in crisis management and emergency mobilization. As part of the District’s response team, she managed the anthrax prophylaxis clinics, as well as provided planning and staff coordination for tabletop training exercises and other health mobilizations.

Most recently, much of Janet Perkins’ work has focused on strategic health planning; the design and implementation of best-practice models and applied health services research; the development of training programs in bio-terrorism response; and capacity-building for community-based dental and primary care providers. In accepting the position of Director of the Miami-Dade Office of Countywide Health Planning, Janet Perkins is leaving the faculty of Howard University in Washington D.C. where she worked with the Colleges of Medicine, Dentistry and Allied Health.  When asked why she was interested in leaving academia for Miami-Dade County, Ms. Perkins answered: “Across the country the role and functioning of public health is dramatically changing and Miami-Dade is at the epicenter of that change. Nothing compares with opportunity to be a partner in the creation of a new model for healthcare delivery in a community that is undergoing so much progress.”