Mary Wherry, MS, RN
Deputy Administrator, Nevada State Health Division
Mary E. Wherry has served at the Deputy Administrator of the Nevada Health Division since May 2008 and previously as the Division of Health Care Financing and Policy Deputy Administrator from 1999 - 2008. She is currently the Director of Clinical Services with the Health Division overseeing Community Health Nursing, Nevada Early Intervention Services, Environmental Health Services, and the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) programs. With over 10 years serving in the role of deputy administrator for two of the larger Department of Health and Human Services agencies, Ms. Wherry brings vast experience to providing health care to Nevadans statewide.
As the director of clinical services for West Hills Hospital (Behavioral Health Corporation) in Reno, Nevada in 1999, Ms. Wherry managed a budget of $17 million and provided oversight to a number of healthcare disciplines in a 95-bed psychiatric hospital providing a continuum of services to children, adolescents, and adults. In Lewisville, Texas, Ms. Wherry was employed by Horizon Mental Health Management and directed 60 employees and oversaw a budget of $5 million.
Earlier in her career, Ms. Wherry served as a director of the Iowa Nurses Association in her home state, worked as a nurse manager at the Clinical Center at the National Institutes of Health, was a clinical instructor at Montgomery College in Takoma Park, Maryland, was a senior supervisory nurse at the Psychiatric Institutes of America in both Washington, D.C. and Rockville, Maryland, and was employed at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Her breath of work in the Midwest and in the nation's capitol brings a unique perspective to solving Nevada's health care challenges.
Healthcare management, administering and funding public healthcare programs, e.g. Medicaid, S-CHIP, psychiatric care for acute mental illness and the chemically dependent, interdisciplinary team care, and state-of-the-art nursing models are some the honed disciplines Ms. Wherry brings to Nevada's public health discussion.
Ms. Wherry received her B.S. degree in Nursing at San Jose University and her M.S. in Psychiatric-Mental Health Nursing and Health Policy with a Policy Science Certificate at the University of Maryland in Baltimore.