Ridenour Named RWJ Health Policy Fellow

Date: 5/14/07
Contact: Eric Jome

Nancy Ridenour, dean of Mennonite College of Nursing at Illinois State University will spend the next two years in the nation’s capital helping to shape American health care policy. Ridenour is one of a select few health professionals in the U.S. named as a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellow.

As a Health Policy Fellow, Ridenour will spend two years in Washington, D.C. as a congressional staff member concentrating on health policy issues. In the third and final year of the Fellowship she will return to Mennonite College of Nursing as a faculty member and apply her health policy experience to projects on the community and state level.

Before she leaves for Washington, D.C. this September, Ridenour will step down as dean of Mennonite. Associate Dean Sara Campbell will assume leadership of the College on an interim basis.

The Health Policy Fellowship Program selects professionals who are proven leaders and who bring a depth of expertise and knowledge about health and health care to the policy-making process. The Fellowship is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and conducted by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies.

During an intensive 12 week orientation for the Health Policy Fellowship Ridenour will be introduced to key executive branch officials responsible for health policy and programs, members of Congress and their staffs, and representatives of health-related interest groups. She will also participate in seminars on health economics, major federal health and health research programs, the congressional budget process, current priority issues in federal health policy, and the process of federal decision-making. Following the orientation session and an interview process, Ridenour will receive her work assignment and begin her new job as a congressional staff member in January 2008.

“The RWJ Health Policy Fellowship provides an opportunity of a lifetime,” said Ridenour. “I will be learning how to apply my expertise in health care and health care policy to impact federal policy. I am thrilled and honored to be given this opportunity.”

Ridenour has extensive experience working in the health policy area on the state and national levels. In 2003, she was one of 20 nursing leaders from across the nation to be named a Robert Wood Johnson Executive Nurse Fellow. That prestigious program provides advanced leadership training for nurses in senior executive roles who are helping to shape the future of the nation’s healthcare system.

During that three-year fellowship, Ridenour studied ways to improve fundraising efforts and endowments for healthcare facilities and nursing education and also examined healthcare work environment issues such as job satisfaction, workplace safety and alternative ways to provide nursing care to patients.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans. The Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change.