Dr. Kaitlan Baston, a pioneer in addiction treatment based in Camden, has been tapped to lead New Jersey’s Department of Health after the departure next month of current health commissioner Judy Persichilli.

Gov. Phil Murphy announced his intention to nominate Baston Tuesday, several days after Persichilli announced her plans to retire in August after four years leading the department — much of them during the COVID-19 pandemic. The state Senate must still confirm the nomination of Baston, whose career overlaps with several of the administration’s priorities like improving maternal health and health equity and curbing the impact of opioid use.

“Dr. Baston’s breadth of experience as a physician, highlighted by her many leadership roles within the addiction and health care space, will make her an exceptional Commissioner at the Department of Health,” Murphy said in a statement, noting he was “thrilled” to nominate her to the post.

Baston expressed her gratitude to Murphy and said it would be an honor to lead the department, especially following Persichilli’s “incredible work and dedication … during an unprecedented time in public health. “I have spent my career focused on addiction services, maternal and child health, and improving equity through health care in the community, and I am fully committed to using those experiences to create a healthy, equitable state for all,” she said.

Reactions to nomination

Persichilli said serving her home state alongside the dedicated experts at the department was a privilege and that the department is ready to meet future challenges. “Dr. Baston is eminently qualified to carry on the Department’s critical work in tackling New Jersey’s public health crises and fulfilling its mission,” she said.

Jenna Mellor, director of the New Harm Reduction Coalition, which seeks to curb the impact of drug addiction through clean-needle programs and community outreach, called the announcement “huge news.”

“Dr. Baston has a proven track record of commitment to harm reduction and she’s beyond well-equipped to build on the generational progress Commissioner Persichilli made treading drug use as a public health issue,” Mellor said, adding that she was “excited to expand harm reduction to every community with Dr. Baston’s leadership.”

Other things to know about Baston:

• She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University, a master’s in neuroscience from King’s College London and an MD from Jefferson Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. She is board certified — the highest level of qualification — in both family and addiction medicine.
• Baston currently oversees addiction medicine for Cooper University Health Care, in Camden, and serves as the medical director for Cooper’s Center for Healing, a program she founded to better integrate pain, addiction and behavioral health. The center also provides inpatient consultation, outpatient clinics, a variety of wrap-around services and medical education in addiction treatment and conducts research. She is also an assistant professor for addiction medicine at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University.
• At Cooper University Health Care, Baston helped lead a program to connect emergency room patients with effective treatment after they had been revived from a possible overdose with the opioid-antidote Narcan. By offering these patients buprenorphine — a gold-standard medically assisted opioid treatment that eliminates cravings and most addictive behaviors — emergency room doctors at Cooper were able to provide a potential link to sobriety for people who would otherwise experience debilitating withdrawal symptoms that often prompt a quick relapse. The program was later expanded to include emergency responders, who often revive people in the street, and eventually former health commissioner Dr. Shereef Elnahal issued a directive that made New Jersey the first state to permit EMTs to offer this treatment statewide.
• Baston also worked closely with the state Department of Human Services, which oversees addiction treatment, under former Commissioner Carole Johnson to grow the number of doctors permitted to prescribe buprenorphine and other medically assisted treatments, or MAT. Eventually she and Dr. Erin Zerbo, a psychiatrist who then worked at University Hospital in Newark, would be tapped to lead two “centers of excellence” on MAT, where they consulted with other doctors and sought to expand access to treatment.
• Baston also works with Zero to Three, a nonprofit focused on improving outcomes for babies and toddlers. She has served in an American Academy of Pediatrics expert group to improve medical education around addiction, a working group formed by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to address maternal health and addiction and in a White House symposium on addiction medicine. In Camden County, Baston is a member of the Addiction Awareness Task Force and the county’s opioid settlement funds board, and she has received numerous awards, including the New Jersey Healthcare Innovation Hero Award in 2022.