center leadership

Thomas C. Ricketts, Ph.D.
Barbara Mark, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N.
Thomas R. (Bob) Konrad, Ph.D.
Donald E. Pathman, M.D., M.P.H.
Cheryl Jones, Ph.D., R.N.
Erin Fraher, M.P.P.

Thomas C. Ricketts, III, Ph.D., MPH, Principal Investigator. Dr. Ricketts is a Professor of Health Policy and Administration and Social Medicine, and the Director of the Health Policy Analysis Unit in the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The focus of his research has been on policy making for the health care workforce and access to care for rural and underserved populations. He was the founding director of the North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center which he led for 12 years from 1988 until 2000. In 2003, he became the director of the Southeastern Regional Center for Health Workforce Studies which he currently leads. Dr. Ricketts works actively in health workforce policy making and research. He has developed national and state policies governing the distribution of health resources and health care practitioners. Since 2001 he has chaired the Scientific Advisory Committee for the United Health Foundation’s America’s Health Rankings™. In 2004 he was appointed to a four-year term on the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services (US DHHS). In 1997, Dr. Ricketts received the Distinguished Rural Health Researcher award from the National Rural Health Association, and in 1998, the Cecil G. Sheps Distinguished Investigator award from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a member of the North Carolina Institute of Medicine and serves as an advisor to national and state health policy organizations. Dr. Ricketts is Editor of the North Carolina Medical Journal having previously served as Editor of the Journal of Rural Health from 1990 until 1996. He is a member of the American Public Health Association, AcademyHealth, the Association of American Geographers, and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Dr. Ricketts has edited two books and multiple articles on the use of geography in health services research and a standard text on rural health, Rural Health in the United States (Oxford, 2000). (back to top)

Barbara Mark, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N, Co-Principal Investigator. Dr. Mark holds the Sarah Frances Russell Distinguished Professorship in Nursing Systems in the School of Nursing. She is also a Research Fellow at the Sheps Center and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Administration in the School of Public Health. For the past 20 years, Dr. Mark has been extensively involved in the educational preparation of nurse managers, nurse executives and nursing and health services researchers, and has been responsible for the design and implementation of both masters and doctoral programs. Her research has focused on development of organizational policy related to the appropriate deployment of the registered nurse workforce in the acute care setting as well as on examining the relationship between nurse staffing and quality of care. Her Outcomes Research in Nursing Administration Project is funded by a grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) and her grant "Nurse Staffing, Hospital Financial Performance and Quality of Care" is funded by AHRQ. Dr. Mark is a member of the American Academy of Nursing’s Expert Panel on Quality of Care; she has published widely in nursing and health services research, with more than 40 articles and books. (back to top)

Thomas R. (Bob) Konrad, Ph.D., Investigator. Dr. Konrad is a Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Program on Health Professions and Primary Care (PHP&PC) at the Sheps Center, with academic appointments as Professor of Social Medicine (School of Medicine), Professor of Health Policy and Administration (School of Public Health), and Research Professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Policy and Evaluative Sciences (School of Pharmacy). Working in conjunction with other investigators at the Sheps Center and elsewhere, Dr. Konrad has directed or collaborated on over 40 health care workforce studies over the past 32 years, publishing nearly 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals, many on topics of substantive and methodological concern to health workforce researchers and policymakers. The range of his interests include Community Health Center (CHC) staffing, National Health Service Corps (NHSC) clinicians, international medical graduates, and workforce issues in dentistry, allied health, and pharmacy. Dr. Konrad served as PI of the Congressionally mandated, HRSA-sponsored evaluation of the Effectiveness of NHSC. During the late 1990s, Dr. Konrad was survey director for the RWJF-sponsored Physician Worklife Study, which collected professional and demographic data on a national sample of primary care and specialist physicians. He also directed a RWJF-sponsored study (Program Effects on Trends in US Rural Physician Location, 1980-1995), which compiled an extensive longitudinal database on physicians and communities. Dr. Konrad’s ongoing work examines: (1) sources and consequences of racial and ethnic disparities in the health care workforce; (2) the impact of physician retirement on the care of their older patients; and (3) improving and assessing interventions for nurse aides and other front line caregivers in long term care settings. (back to top)

Donald E. Pathman, M.D., M.P.H., Investigator. Dr. Pathman is a tenured Associate Professor and Research Director of Family Medicine; and a Senior Research Fellow at the Sheps Center, where he is Co-Director of the Program on Health Professions and Primary Care (PHP&PC). Dr. Pathman also directs UNC’s National Research Service Award Primary Care Research Fellowship, which trains general internists, family physicians and pediatricians for careers as researchers. Dr. Pathman brings to his roles the skills and perspectives of a clinician and experienced and successful primary care researcher. His background includes experience in clinical practice in rural Maine and North Carolina, community health center directorship, and service in the NHSC. Since 1990, Dr. Pathman has led or participated in more than 20 funded studies that have focused on assessments of federal, state, foundation, and training institution policies affecting primary care physicians, particularly policies seeking to alter physicians’ clinical practices, practice locations, and willingness to provide care to minority, rural, and other at-risk populations. He has published over 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Pathman’s work has received national attention in the areas of retaining rural physicians, evaluations of the NHSC, and a conceptual framework and training approaches for primary care physicians’ involvement in their communities. He is the PI of the evaluation of the RWJF’s SRAP, and PI on the recently completed AHRQ-funded study which analyzed longitudinal data on the job transitions of 700 rural primary care physicians. (back to top)

Cheryl Jones, Ph.D., R.N., Investigator. Dr. Jones is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Health Care Systems Program in the UNC School of Nursing. Dr. Jones has a long-standing interest in the health care workforce, quality of care, and costs of care delivery. She has published on the nursing workforce in peer-reviewed journals, and her work on nursing turnover and the costs of nursing turnover has been cited extensively. Dr. Jones completed a two-year appointment (1998-2000) as Senior Health Services Researcher at the AHRQ, where she was involved in projects examining the nursing workforce at organizational and public policy levels, including nurse staffing in hospitals and quality of patient care. In her role at AHRQ, Dr. Jones collaborated with AHRQ, DHHS staff, and individuals in the public and private sectors to analyze trends in the health care workforce and impacts on quality of care to inform decision-makers on health care issues. She also served on the Technical Expert Panel and Workgroup of the DHHS supported Nurse Staffing and Quality of Care Contract, and is currently serving on the DHHS supported Nurse Practitioner Database Project Planning Committee Meeting. (back to top)

Erin Fraher, M.P.P., Investigator, Senior Administrator. Erin Fraher is a Research Fellow and Research Associate at the Sheps Center and Director of the NC Health Professions Data System (NC HPDS), a research program dedicated to providing health workforce data and analyses to state and national policy makers. Ms. Fraher is currently leading a study investigating the supply, distribution, workload and reimbursement patterns of rural pharmacists and pharmacies in five states for which she received funding from the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP). At the behest of the UNC Board of Governors and Office of the President, Ms. Fraher recently completed an extensive study of the pharmacist workforce shortage in NC (.pdf) that was used by the State legislature in their deliberations about whether to establish a new pharmacy educational program in the state. Ms. Fraher is the PI on the Allied Health Workforce Assessment Project, a collaborative effort funded by The Duke Endowment to examine the adequacy of the state’s allied health workforce. Studies on the physical therapy, speech-language pathology and health information management workforces have been completed; research on the radiologic sciences workforce is underway. Ms. Fraher was also a co-Investigator on a recently completed project evaluating the national AHEC Program funded by the BHPr of HRSA. She is the Sheps Center liaison to the NC AHEC program. For the past ten years, Ms. Fraher has worked as a policy analyst and researcher on a variety of health care issues including health professions regulation, clinical practice guideline development, and health professions quality assurance programs. Through these projects, she has developed strong data management, statistical analysis, policy analysis and project management skills. (back to top)