Steinberg Institute Executive Director Maggie Merritt has been appointed to a key advisory committee that will help inform the work of the California Future Health Workforce Commission, a high-powered panel charged with helping identify and address debilitating gaps in the state’s health care workforce.
The Workforce Commission, co-chaired by University of California President Janet Napolitano and Dignity Health President and CEO Lloyd Dean, is composed of 24 leaders in education, business and health care. Over the next 12 months, the group will develop a blue print for how the state can recruit, train and develop the multi-skilled workforce needed to meet the evolving health care needs of its diverse and growing population.
The commission will be supported in its work by a Technical Advisory Committee made up of more than three dozen experts in various aspects of health care policy and delivery. Merritt’s participation ensures that the complex challenges and harmful shortages facing the mental health workforce will be front and center in discussion.
Four foundations are partnering to support and fund the commission: The California Endowment; California Health Care Foundation; The California Wellness Foundation; and Blue Shield of California Foundation. The goal is a road map that lays out a series of short- and long-term solutions to the state’s health workforce needs; as well as creation of a workforce that delivers smarter, more affordable care.
Merritt has served as executive director of the Steinberg Institute since its inception in January 2015. Before joining the institute, she worked for years as a leader and advocate for nonprofit organizations focused on women’s and children’s health, violence prevention, and social justice and civil rights issues. In 2004, Merritt worked alongside then-Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg on the successful Proposition 63 campaign that imposed a 1 percent tax on personal income over $1 million and funds mental health services across California. The Mental Health Services Act brings in nearly $2 billion annually to provide treatment, prevention and early intervention services to adults and children with mental illness.
For more information on the California Future Health Workforce Commission, including its list of commissioners and TAC members: https://futurehealthworkforce.org/
The Steinberg Institute is a Sacramento-based nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing sound public policy and inspiring leadership on issues of mental health
