About the Center

History

The NC Center on the Workforce for Health builds out of a partnership developed in 2021 between NC AHEC, NC Institute of Medicine, and the Sheps Center for Health Services Research. The founding organizations shared a vision of a collaborative home for coordinating persistent action to address North Carolina’s pervasive health workforce shortages and maldistribution. By 2023, NC AHEC was awarded grant funds to operationalize the Center, which hired its first director in February 2024. The Center is part of the NC AHEC Program Office and manages its work collaboratively with a range of internal and external partners.

Purpose

Our role is to strengthen North Carolina’s health workforce to meet the state’s current and future health care needs. We are working toward this by convening health employers, workers, educators, regulators, policymakers, and other stakeholders to discuss challenges and develop solutions. Currently, more than 80 Allied Organizations contribute to this work.

Structure

The Center is part of the NC AHEC Program and manages key initiatives collaboratively with external partners, which contribute to the Center’s planning through a Steering Committee.

The Center’s steering committee was critical in organizing the Center’s activities prior to on-boarding full time staff. The steering committee currently advises Center leadership on strategic direction.

Center Staff