Search for state Health Department director focusing on five

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The search for a state Health Department director is focused on five candidates, including an agency employee and a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, a newspaper reported.

Search committee Chairman Gordon Deckert told The Daily Oklahoman that the new health commissioner would likely come from a list of five candidates who lead a list of nine possible choices.

Also included among the five most likely candidates are the medical director for the New Mexico Corrections Department, a New Jersey epidemiologist and the assistant officer of the Florida Department of Health, Deckert said.

Deckert said all five would be interviewed by the end of this month.

Whoever is chosen will have the task of leading the state Health Department out of months of scandal that began with the arrest of former Deputy Health Commissioner Brent VanMeter on a bribery charge and later led to evidence of dozens of people who had jobs within the agency but who did little or no work.

"Leadership is desperately needed," Deckert said of the beleaguered department.

According to Deckert, the top candidates for the job are: -- John M. Robertson, 48, who since 1993 has been medical director for the 5,400-inmate New Mexico prison system.

-- Elin A. Gursky, who is a private consultant and epidemiologist with extensive health experience in the St. Barnabas hospital system and as New Jersey's senior deputy health commissioner.

-- Garth L. Splinter, 49, a former chief executive officer for the Oklahoma Health Care Authority, the state's Medicaid agency.

Splinter is an OU professor of family and preventive medicine in Oklahoma City.

-- Robert D. Vincent, 58, who is a Health Department deputy commissioner for health promotion and policy analysis.

-- Leslie M Beitsch of Tallahassee, Fla., who supervises health services and activities offered by 11,000 employees at Florida's 67 county health departments.

Beitsch was in Oklahoma City on Thursday meeting with officials involved in the search process, which originally had 19 candidates.

Vincent has already been interviewed. Robertson arrives in Oklahoma City on Sunday. Gursky and Splinter will be interviewed later this month.

Deckert said he expects a second round of interviews in February with the two top candidates for the job. He said a final decision should be made on a new commissioner by April 1. The commissioner's salary is expected to be more than $125,000 a year.