The North Carolina Institute of Medicine, NCIOM, is an independent organization focused on improving the health and well-being of North Carolinians by providing analysis on the health and well-being of North Carolinians, identifying solutions to the health issues facing our state, building consensus toward evidence-based solutions, and informing health policy at the state and local level.
We bring together diverse stakeholders to develop solutions to the complex health problems in North Carolina.
The NCIOM’s task forces and other projects, including the NCMJ, have led to sustained improvements in the health and well-being of North Carolinians.
Current Work
Collaborating for a Healthier North Carolina
The NCIOM addresses the health needs of North Carolinians by working with stakeholder groups to identify evidence-based strategies to improve health and inform health policy.
The nursing workforce in North Carolina, already vulnerable prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, is facing unprecedented pressure and a need for coordinated, statewide solutions. Factors such as an aging population, health system transformations, and the tremendous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the nursing workforce are increasing pressure on this sector. The North Carolina Institute of Medicine is convening state nursing leaders and practitioners across academia, health systems, local public health, and other sectors to develop an actionable vision for enhancing and supporting North Carolina's nursing workforce.
Overview
In early 2021, NC AHEC, NCIOM, and the Sheps Center Program on Health Workforce Research and Policy began developing a concept for a statewide center focused on the collaborative and comprehensive development of North Carolina’s workforce for health. As of September 2023, these coordinating organizations have convened five quarterly meetings aimed at collecting and integrating feedback from state health care leaders on the priority goals, activities, and organizational structure of a North Carolina Center on the Workforce for Health.
Purpose
The NC Center on the Workforce for Health will provide a forum for health employers, workers, educators, regulators, policymakers, and others throughout North Carolina to convene, discuss challenges and opportunities, share best practices and lessons learned, identify potential solutions and metrics for success, and monitor progress toward addressing these challenges. North Carolina’s historic, persistent, and worsening health workforce shortages can best be addressed through intentional, transparent, and collaborative engagement by the communities interested in solving those problems. Although many organizations focus on health workforce development, that work typically is focused on a specific profession, geography, or institution.
Goals
• Provide a mechanism to ensure that efforts to address health workforce issues persist over time which will ultimately better align the supply of health workers with the demand for those workers.
• Convene employers, educators, workers, regulators, and others to develop, deploy, monitor, and assess efforts to address health workforce issues. Convenings will be at the state and local levels with bi-direction information flow.
• Gather and make available relevant data and policy, analyze, and synthesize that information to make it actionable, and provide technical assistance and guidance to interested parties when acting to address health workforce issues.
• Provide a forum for interested parties to share best practices and lessons learned.
Please see Related Links section below for additional resources, including Center on the Workforce for Health meeting minutes.
The North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NCIOM) is convening a task force to identify and develop consensus-driven, actionable recommendations to strengthen the delivery of oral health services through North Carolina's Medicaid program and promote whole-person health across the state.
The Oral Health Transformation Task Force will be guided by a focus on the needs of vulnerable populations and historically marginalized communities, and will include diverse perspectives, expertise, and lived experience in the collaborative design, development, and messaging of oral health transformation opportunities. The task force, which is generously supported by the Duke Endowment, will consider several aspects of oral health services in North Carolina in developing recommendations, including consumer access and experience, operations, provider networks, and quality measures and outcomes.
Supporting Local Planning for Substance Use Disorder and Overdose Prevention Strategies
The North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NCIOM) is supporting county and regional multi-sector planning around substance use disorder and overdose prevention strategies in anticipation of forthcoming opioid settlement funds. Since July 2021, the NCIOM has engaged in several key activities, including the development of a learning collaborative process that will bring county-level stakeholders together to connect and align, conducting key perspective interviews, focus groups, and listening sessions to ensure inclusivity and understanding of the impacts of substance use disorders and overdose in communities across the state, and convening the leaders of several workstreams related to the opioid settlement to promote coordination.
North Carolina Medical Journal
The Latest Issue
Assessing Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease as Causes of Death in North Carolina
Current Issue January 11, 2024
In the Issue
Significant advances in science and medicine have not been adequate to dethrone heart disease, cancer, and stroke from their positions as three of the top killers of North Carolinians.
