AAMC Center for Workforce Studies

Goals

• Develop the capacity to effectively document and study physician workforce issues related to physician supply, demand, utilization, and distribution across specialty and geographic region.
• Support informed decision-making by the medical education community (medical schools, teaching hospitals, faculty, medical students and residents) and policy makers.
• Support AAMC policy goals that related to physician workforce, such as increasing under-represented minorities in medicine.

Objectives

• Promote more systematic collection and analysis of physician workforce data and dissemination of findings.
• Promote a physician supply and distribution by specialty and by geographical area consistent with demands and needs of the US population.
• Develop systems, tools and methods to more accurately assess current and future physician workforce supply, demand and distribution.
• Provide leadership among physician organizations and the research community related to expanding and improving physician workforce studies and data collection.

Activities

• Conduct and collaborate on workforce needs assessments:
  • For the nation as a whole;
  • For selected specialties; and,
  • For selected states and regions
• Increase the availability of quality data on the physician workforce:
  • Collaborate with organizations that collect data on the physician workforce; and
  • Directly collect data to help quantify and measure supply, demand, distribution, shortages and surpluses of physicians;
• Collaborate on and conduct studies to assess and monitor factors likely to impact future supply, demand, distribution and use of physicians
• Produce and disseminate reports and data on the physician workforce to the medical education community and the public
• Bring together organizations and groups interested in physician workforce issues:
  • Convene annual meeting of physician workforce researchers;
  • Develop and promote common data definitions and data elements across specialties and states; and,
  • Identify and promote an adequately funded national research agenda

Staff

Edward S. Salsberg

Mr. Salsberg is the Director of the Center for Workforce Studies at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the AAMC, Mr. Salsberg was the Executive Director of the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the School of Public Health at the University at Albany of the State University of New York. Mr. Salsberg established the Center in 1996. The Center is a national leader in the field of health workforce studies.

Mr. Salsberg, a frequent speaker across the country on issues related to the health workforce, has authored and co-authored numerous reports and papers on the health workforce. Mr. Salsberg has been a member of the U.S. delegation to the International Medical Workforce Collaborative since 1999 and is the chair of the 2004 delegation. He is the chair of the Health Workforce Research Interest Group of AcademyHealth. Mr. Salsberg was on the steering committee of the National Academy for State Health Policy from 1995 to 2004. He was a member of the American Hospital Association's Commission on Workforce for Hospitals and Health Systems. Mr. Salsberg was a member of the faculty at the School of Public Health in Albany. From 1984 to 1996, Mr. Salsberg was a Bureau Director at the New York State Department of Health. Mr. Salsberg received his master's in public administration from the Wagner School at New York University.

E-mail: esalsberg@aamc.org
Phone: 202-828-0415

Clese Erikson

Ms. Erikson is the Associate Director of the AAMC's Center for Workforce Studies. Prior to joining the Center for Workforce Studies, she was the director of research projects for the American Medical Group Association. Ms. Erikson received her master's in public affairs from the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. Her areas of expertise include survey design, project management, patient safety, and the role of non-physician clinicians in primary care and disease management.

E-mail: cerikson@aamc.org
Phone: 202-828-0587

Rajeev K. Sabharwal

Mr. Sabharwal is the Senior Researcher in the AAMC's Center for Physician Workforce Studies. Prior to joining the Center for Workforce Studies, he served as the Associate Director for Educational Research in the AAMC's Division of Medical Education. His responsibilities included oversight of the annual Medical School Graduation Questionnaire (GQ) and the AAMC's Cooperative Agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mr. Sabharwal received his master's in public health, with a concentration in epidemiology from the University of Alabama-Birmingham School of Public Health. His research interests include medical school expansion and creation, physician distribution, medical student specialty choice, and the growing issue of medical student indebtedness.

E-mail: rsabharwal@aamc.org
Phone: 202-828-0979

Kerri L. Rivers

Ms. Rivers is a Data Analyst at the AAMC's Center for Workforce Studies. Prior to joining the Center for Workforce Studies, she was a Research Associate in Domestic Programs at the Population Reference Bureau, where she analyzed data relating to workforce development and child well-being, and conducted training workshops to increase the use of data from the federal statistical system for improving policies and programs. Ms. Rivers received her master's in experimental psychology from the University of Texas at Arlington.

E-mail: krivers@aamc.org
Phone: 202-828-0477

Michael Dill

Mr. Dill is a Senior Data Analyst at the AAMC's Center for Workforce Studies. Immediately prior to joining the Center for Workforce Studies, he developed an online data analysis system for estimating local area need for housing and services for the older population. Mr. Dill has prior health workforce research experience, having worked at the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany—with Ed Salsberg—for several years. He received his Master of Public Affairs and Policy from Rockefeller College.

E-mail: mdill@aamc.org
Phone: 202-828-0673

Stacey Schulman

Ms. Schulman is a Research Associate at the AAMC's Center for Workforce Studies. Prior to joining the Center for Workforce Studies, she was a Research Coordinator at Odyssey House, Inc., in New York City, where she implemented clinical and social research projects relating to decision making skills as well as analyzed data pertaining to such projects. Ms. Schulman received her master's in psychology from Boston University.

E-mail: sschulman@aamc.org
Phone: 202-862-6053

Zoe Berman

Ms. Berman is the Program Assistant for the AAMC's Center for Workforce Studies. She recently finished her bachelor's degree in Integrated International Studies and Spanish from Knox College in Illinois.

E-mail: zberman@aamc.org
Phone: 202-828-0048