RWJF Leaders' Link-March/April

Volume 1, Number 2 — March/April 2009

Programs' Progress

Ladder to Leadership Aims to Fill a

Growing Gap
Foundation Focus
Although nonprofit health organizations
As you know, the goal of achieving health reform has been renewed at the national
have served as an important safety net
level over the past several months. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, M.D., M.B.A., RWJF
for millions of lower-income Americans,
president and CEO, outlined six key elements toward comprehensive reform in the
holes are threatening to form in that net.
President's Message from the 2008 Annual Report:
The financial downturn has created new

challenges for nonprofits: they find

1. Cover the uninsured. The Foundation has funded the work of national
themselves called on to help more
experts to provide guidance on the tough legal, legislative and
people, even as their funding sources
administrative issues that will arise in implementing any comprehensive
are shrinking. As a result, nonprofit
reform.
leaders must collaborate and innovate

as never before. 2. Improve the quality, value and equality of health care. RWJF

supports programs whose goals range from improving data on

In addition to economic woes, another
physicians' cost and quality of care, to developing interventions that
imminent problem is loss in leadership
reduce racial and ethnic disparities in care, to transforming how
as the baby boomers age out of the job

market. By 2016 these organizations will providers pay for and deliver care—rewarding value instead of volume.

need approximately 80,000 new senior 3. Bring down spending. Through our Aligning Forces for Quality
managers a year. Where will these
initiative, RWJF is asking communities across the country to take some
nonprofit leaders come from? And how
initial steps toward increasing the availability of information on health
will they acquire the skills to succeed?
care quality, including its cost.
A partnership between the Robert Wood
4. Prevent disease and promote healthier lifestyles. A 2008 report
Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and the
funded by the Foundation found that an investment of $10 per person
Center for Creative Leadership (CCL®)
per year in proven community-based programs to increase physical

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RWJF Leaders' Link-March/April

aims to identify the nonprofit leaders of

activity, improve nutrition and decrease tobacco use could save the
tomorrow and to equip them for the
country more than $16 billion annually within five years.
challenges ahead. RWJF awarded a $4

million grant to CCL to design Ladder to 5. Strengthen public health. Since 2003, RWJF has funded the annual

Leadership: Developing the Next report, Ready or Not? Protecting the Public's Health from Diseases,

Generation of Community Health Disasters, and Bioterrorism. It contains state-by-state scores based on

Leaders, a national fellowship program 10 key indicators that assess health emergency preparedness.
that, over four years and in nine U.S.
6. Address social determinants of health. Through a series of hearings,
communities, will develop nearly 300
on-site visits and research, the new Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
emerging leaders in health-related
Commission to Build a Healthier America will investigate how factors
nonprofits. Continued >>
such as education, environment, income and housing affect personal

Read More Program News » behavioral choices. The Commission will identify nonmedical, evidence-

based strategies—both short- and long-term—to improve the health of all

● Clinical Scholars Program Adds New Americans.

Feature to Web Site

RWJF is also paving the way to meaningful health reform by serving as an
● Executive Nurse Fellows Hold Spring
information resource on the subject. We recently launched www.healthreform.org,
Leadership Seminar
a Web site devoted to the work of the Foundation and its grantees in the six areas

● Health & Society Scholars Program above.

Selects Next Cohort

As a researcher and/or practitioner, you engage in "health reform" every day: first
● Nurse Faculty Scholars Convene
in identifying an obstacle to optimal health and health care, and then devising a
Leadership Meeting
plan or analyzing information to better understand or overcome that obstacle.

Please help us to populate this Web site by sending work that you have

completed related to health reform to humancapital@iqsolutions.com. If you

Inside Intelligence have plans to release new research on a topic related to health reform, or are

currently working on other projects that address it, please share that information as

well.
Would you like a daily update on the

appearances of Human Capital

Together, we can overcome the barriers keeping Americans from optimal health.
scholars, fellows, leaders and

investigators in major newspapers, Best Regards,

magazines and wire services? Linda Wright Moore
Subscribe to the RWJF Human Capital Senior Communications Officer
Daily News Bulletin listserv, and read

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RWJF Leaders' Link-March/April
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
the latest RWJF Human Capital news

right off the press. To subscribe: send Research Roundup

an e-mail to humancapital@iqsolutions.

com, and type "subscribe" in the subject Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program

line.
Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Ph.D., M.D.'s study, Racial Differences in Incident Heart

Failure Among Young Adults, was published as the lead article in the March 19,

Communication Corner 2009 New England Journal of Medicine. It finds that heart failure–a disabling and

often deadly form of heart disease–is hitting African Americans in their thirties and
Sharing Your Study: Some Criteria
for Media Promotion forties at the same rate as Caucasians in their fifties and sixties. One in 100

African-American men and women developed heart failure at an average age of

Every study you bring to fruition has an
39; this is 20 times the rate found in Caucasians. This study received coverage in
impact. Because media attention can
the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, Time, the Baltimore Sun,
help increase that impact, the Robert
U.S. News & World Report, Reuters and MedpageToday, among others.
Wood Johnson Foundation, working in

partnership with its communications

Read More Research News »
contractors, has developed criteria for

evaluating requests for promoting

● Clinical Scholars
studies to the media. They are:
● Health & Society Scholars

● Relevance to RWJF Priorities: Does ● Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research

the research fit within one of RWJF's ● Physician Faculty Scholars

program areas (building human

capital, childhood obesity, health care

Achievements & Accolades
coverage, pioneer/innovative ideas,

public health, quality/equality,

Clinical Scholars
vulnerable populations)? Does the

research connect with RWJF's goal of Clinical Scholars Anish Mahajan, M.D., Chisaraokwu Asomugha, M.D., M.P.H.,
health reform? and Rebekah Gee, M.D., M.P.H., have been selected among the 108 regional

finalists for the White House Fellows program. White House Fellows typically

Read More Communication Corner» spend a year working as full-time, paid special assistants to senior White House

Staff, the Vice President, Cabinet Secretaries and other top-ranking government

officials.

Read More Achievements & Accolades »

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RWJF Leaders' Link-March/April

Do you have an article that will be

● Clinical Scholars
published in a journal within the next 30
● Community Health Leaders
to 60 days? Would you like ideas,

suggestions, or support to promote this ● Executive Nurse Fellows

research? ● Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program

Contact humancapital@iqsolutions.com
● Health & Society Scholars
or 240-221-4055.
● Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research
Have you taken a new job? Released a

new publication? Received an award? ● Physician Faculty Scholars

Or have some other piece of news to ● Scholars in Health Policy Research

share with the network?

Please submit suggestions for the next

edition of the Leaders' Link by May 15,

2009, to humancapital@iqsolutions.com.

About these Human Capital programs: Annual Meetings and Seminars

● Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars ● Health & Society Scholars, San Diego, Calif., May 11–14

Program® ● Scholars in Health Policy Research, Aspen, Colo., May

● Community Health Leaders 27–30

● Executive Nurse Fellows ● Health Policy Fellows Synergy Workshop, Washington,

● Harold Amos Medical Faculty D.C., June 18-19

Development ● Executive Nurse Fellows, Denver, Colo., Oct. 6–10

● Health & Society Scholars® ● Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development, TBD, Oct.

● Health Policy Fellows 7–9

● Investigator Awards in Health Policy ● Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research, San

Research Diego, Calif., Oct. 7–10

● Ladder to Leadership ● Health Policy Fellows Alumni, Washington, D.C., Oct.

● Nurse Faculty Scholars 13

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RWJF Leaders' Link-March/April

● Physician Faculty Scholars ● Clinical Scholars, San Diego, Calif., Nov. 3–6

● Scholars in Health Policy Research ● Nurse Faculty Scholars, TBD, Dec. 1–3

● Physician Faculty Scholars, San Diego, Calif., Dec. 7–

10

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