Kate Walsh, CEO of Boston Medical Center, Leaving to Lead Massachusetts Health and Human Services Department
Veteran healthcare leader is tapped by Governor Maura Healey to oversee state’s largest department

Kate Walsh, who has been president and CEO of Boston Medical Center, BU’s primary teaching hospital, for 13 years, has been named secretary of the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services. The announcement was made by Governor Maura Healey on January 25. Staff photo by Angela Rowlings
Kate Walsh, CEO of Boston Medical Center, Leaving to Lead Massachusetts Health and Human Services Department
Veteran healthcare leader tapped by Governor Maura Healey to oversee state’s largest department; national search begins for her successor to lead Boston’s safety net hospital
Kate Walsh, president and CEO of Boston Medical Center—the primary teaching hospital of Boston University’s Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine and the city of Boston’s safety net hospital—is leaving her position after 13 years to become secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services under Governor Maura Healey.
“Kate Walsh is exactly the leader Massachusetts needs for this moment in health care,” Healey said in a statement to the Boston Globe Tuesday night. “She has a proven track record of delivering results on health equity, affordability, and behavioral health, while also addressing social determinants of health like food and housing insecurity. She will bring an innovative and compassionate approach to the office that centers the needs of patients and providers.”
In a tweet Wednesday morning, Healey added: “Our state is at a critical moment in health care. Costs have skyrocketed. Disparities are wider. We’re reckoning with a mental health crisis. Today, we’re announcing the appointment of Kate Walsh as the new Secretary of @MassHHS. She is the leader we need to meet this moment.”
“This is a critical moment for our state, as we continue to address the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, widening health disparities, skyrocketing healthcare costs, and a devastating behavioral health crisis,” Walsh said in a statement. “Together, we will work to advance racial health equity, address affordability, spur innovative solutions to our healthcare challenges, and ensure that people live healthy lives.”
In a note to the BMC community on Wednesday, Walsh wrote: “Given the accelerated timing of this transition, our Board has made the very wise decision to name Dr. Alastair Bell as Interim CEO of BMC Health System. In addition to overseeing the daily operations and continued strategic plans of the health system, Alastair will take the lead on the national search for the Hospital President mentioned in my note in November.”
Bell has been with the hospital since 2012, after starting as a consultant to help with strategic plan development. Joe Camillus is the chief operating officer of Boston Medical Center.
Health and Human Services is a sprawling department, the largest in state government, overseeing from the child welfare system to the opioid epidemic to veteran’s services to mental health care to elder care to MassHealth, the state’s massive health benefits system. Walsh will lead a department that controls 12 different state agencies and has a combined budget of more than $27 billion, with 22,000 public employees. The department’s website says that 53 percent of the state’s budget falls in some way under its control, and that it provides treatment to one in every three state residents.
Walsh is a veteran healthcare leader with decades of experience within the Boston hospital scene, widely regarded as a leading mecca of healthcare. She has been an especially fierce advocate for racial health equity during her time at BMC, which began in 2010.
Prior to that role, she served as Brigham and Women’s Hospital executive vice president and chief operating officer. She also has served as senior vice president at Massachusetts General Hospital, and was a leader at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. At BMC, Walsh pushed Beacon Hill lawmakers to provide more resources for behavioral healthcare.
“Kate Walsh is an outstanding selection for secretary of HHS. She has been a wonderful leader of Boston Medical Center and a strong advocate for quality healthcare for the underserved people of Boston,” says BU President Robert A. Brown. “We will miss her voice in the partnership between the Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center, our major teaching hospital.”
The HHS secretary position became available when Healey was elected governor in November, succeeding Charlie Baker. Baker’s secretary of HHS during his eight years in office was Marylou Sudders (CAS’76, SSW’78, Hon.’22), who agreed to serve as a temporary advisor to Healey’s administration as it searched for a permanent replacement. Mary Beckman, who was running HHS on an interim basis, is expected to move into a senior advisor role in the department.
In departing BMC, Walsh leaves a private, 514-bed, not-for-profit hospital and academic medical center with a long history of having a community-based focus. BMC has approximately 5,000 employees, 1,300 physicians, and an annual operating budget of about $1.5 billion.
In addition to the medical center, BMC oversees a network of affiliated community health centers, and it operates and owns BMC HealthNet, a statewide Medicaid Managed Care Organization that has more than 240,000 members across the commonwealth.
“Kate Walsh’s experience at several academic medical centers in Massachusetts and New York, and particularly in managing BMC, with its mission of exceptional care without exception, and providing high value medical care at a manageable cost, make her an outstanding choice for this position,” says Karen Antman, dean of the medical school and provost of the Medical Campus.
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