Nurturing a strong, capable health and health care workforce—local public health workers to clinical researchers to health care policy analysts—through leadership development, training and research.

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SINCE ITS INCEPTION, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has recognized the importance of investing in the backbone of our health and health care delivery system—its people. The Foundation’s mission to improve health and health care cannot be accomplished without a strong and vibrant workforce and well-trained leaders. Over the years, our programs have sought to create more generalist physicians, attract underrepresented minorities to the field, and help build nurse and public health leadership. While most of these efforts were developed to address a particular workforce “problem,” our current work to strengthen human capital is focused on increasing the coordination, learning and returns from these many diverse programs.

Our current efforts focus on policy and leadership development, field building and addressing quality and diversity among health and health care workers and leaders. While specific workforce needs ebb and flow depending on economics, demographics and technology, the need to develop new skills among workers, and to cultivate the next generation of health and health care leaders, remains constant.

In 2004 our efforts to support the health and health care workforce centered around three areas:

• Policy and Leadership. We continued to support several programs focused on enhancing opportunities to improve health and health care policy and leadership. For example, our Health Policy Fellowships Program has allowed mid-career health care practitioners to apply their skills toward improving health policy by working with the U.S. Congress. The Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership Program recognizes outstanding individuals who have made significant improvements to health and health care in communities throughout the nation.
• Field Building. The Foundation also engages in training and education efforts aimed at building the field. One of our long-standing initiatives, the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars® Program, continued to help physicians expand their reach beyond the biological sciences, to health services research in other fields. A newer effort, the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars Program, focused on building capacity to address the social, environmental, behavioral, economic and biological factors that affect health.
• Addressing Workforce Quality and Diversity. We continued to look for strategic opportunities to attract and retain quality workers, as well as focus on ways to support workers already active in the field. Past investments have ranged from programs to increase the number of generalists to those meant to attract and retain high-quality home health care workers. A related long-standing interest emphasizes building diversity and cultural sensitivity among the health care workforce. In 2004 we began work to reach out to and attract a more diverse applicant pool for our fellowship and scholarship programs.

In 2004 the Foundation also funded a cluster of projects to strengthen the front-line health and health care workforce—the network of social workers, home health aides, addiction counselors and nursing assistants—who provide regular care and services to patients. Among these grants is a project at the Institute for Professional Development in the Addictions to develop a plan to improve training opportunities and skills for addiction treatment counselors in New York state; we expect that its plan will serve as a model for other state-level approaches to improving the front-line workforce.

• Field Building. The Foundation also engages in training and education efforts aimed at building the field. One of our long-standing initiatives, the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars® Program, continued to help physicians expand their reach beyond the biological sciences, to health services research in other fields. A newer effort, the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars Program, focused on building capacity to address the social, environmental, behavioral, economic and biological factors that affect health.
• Addressing Workforce Quality and Diversity. We continued to look for strategic opportunities to attract and retain quality workers, as well as focus on ways to support workers already active in the field. Past investments have ranged from programs to increase the number of generalists to those meant to attract and retain high-quality home health care workers. A related long-standing interest emphasizes building diversity and cultural sensitivity among the health care workforce. In 2004 we began work to reach out to and attract a more diverse applicant pool for our fellowship and scholarship programs.

In 2004 the Foundation also funded a cluster of projects to strengthen the front-line health and health care workforce—the network of social workers, home health aides, addiction counselors and nursing assistants—who provide regular care and services to patients. Among these grants is a project at the Institute for Professional Development in the Addictions to develop a plan to improve training opportunities and skills for addiction treatment counselors in New York state; we expect that its plan will serve as a model for other state-level approaches to improving the front-line workforce.