CHAPEL HILL -- The National Conference of State Legislatures will establish an annual summer institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to train and educate professional legislative staff in the field of state health policy.

The Institute for Legislative Health Staff Development will be a collaborative effort between the conference and the UNC-CH School of Public Health’s department of health policy and administration.

The institute will help legislative staffers across the country improve their state health policy-making abilities, hone their skills in an academic setting and add to their credentials as researchers and policy analysts, said Dr. Thomas C. Ricketts III, who will direct and lead UNC-CH’s team. Ricketts, associate professor of health policy and administration, is deputy director of the university's Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research.

The institute aims to:

develop participants’ analytic, communication and problem-solving skills,

expose participants to other people and institutions that play essential roles in shaping state health policy,

strengthen the quality and creativity of decision making,

provide a forum to share experiences and learn from counterparts in other states,

and foster lasting professional relationships across state boundaries.

UNC-CH was chosen partly because of its faculty’s expertise in the legislative policy-making process and because the UNC-CH department of health policy and administration and School of Public Health enjoy a reputation as being among the best in the country, Ricketts said.

The first summer institute will be held this August. The seven-day program will consist of lectures, panel presentations, case studies, problem-solving activities, computer workshops and participant presentations. The curriculum will be built around the most critical health policy issues facing the states, including Medicaid reform, managed care regulation, licensure of health professionals, long-term care financing, children’s health insurance and patient confidentiality.

"In an era of term limits and relatively high turnover in the state legislatures, the role of professional staff becomes increasingly important," said Dick Merritt, who will lead the conference team and serve as the institute’s project director. "Professional staff are critical for helping legislators make informed decisions by providing information and analysis that is credible, accurate, timely and relevant.

"Through their ability to gather, evaluate and synthesize complex information and data, staff help to free lawmakers from a dependence on lobbyists and executive agencies for information," Merritt added. "In so doing, they play an important role in keeping legislatures on an equal policy making footing with the executive branch."

Professional staff have become "important caretakers of the institutional memory of a legislative committee or chamber wherein they serve, providing a critical understanding of past programs and policies, successful or otherwise," Merritt said. "For these reasons and many others, NCSL felt it was important to focus resources on the education and training of professional health staff in the state legislatures."

Each institute class will be limited to 30 participants, most of whom will probably have less than four years of health policy experience within a state legislature. Participants will be chosen to reflect diversity of backgrounds, geographical regions and varieties of professional experience. Appropriate candidates include both partisan and non-partisan legislative staff.

Ricketts and Dr. Pam Silberman will lead the UNC-CH team. Ricketts directs rural health research and policy programs at the Sheps Center. Silberman is an adjunct faculty member in the department of health policy and administration and associate director for policy analysis at the Sheps Center. Both have prior legislative experience. Ricketts served as the research director for the N.C. Health Planning Commission; Silberman was its deputy director. Also, Silberman, an attorney, was a lobbyist for the N.C. Legal Services Resource Center and served on five legislative study commissions.

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Note to media: Tom Ricketts can be reached at 919-966-5541 or by e-mail at tom_ricketts@unc.edu . Pam Silberman can be reached at 919-966-2670 or by e-mail at pam_silberman@unc.edu .