Meet Joshua Wiener, Senior Fellow & Program Director, Aging, Disability and Long-Term Care, RTI International, and Brian Burwell, Vice President, Thomson/MEDSTAT.

Both the New Jersey Policy Forums on Health and Medical Care and the State Forums Partnership Program bring together health policy experts from around the country to explore critical issues facing state health policymakers. In our Fall 2005 issue, we're pleased to feature Joshua Weiner and Brian Burwell who both presented at the second New Jersey Policy Forum on long-term care in September.

Joshua M. Wiener
Joshua M. Wiener, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow and Program Director for Aging, Disability and Long-Term Care at RTI International, in Washington, DC. He is the author or editor of eight books and over 100 articles on health care for older people, people with disabilities, long-term care, Medicaid, health reform, health care rationing, and maternal and child health. He is currently involved in studies of Medicaid home and community-based services, Systems Change grants, quality assurance for long-term care in the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, and Japan, and health promotion activities of Area Agencies on Aging. He is co-director of the Alzheimer's Disease Demonstration Grants to States Resource Center funded by the Administration on Aging. Prior to coming to RTI International, Mr. Wiener did policy analysis and research for the Urban Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Health Care Financing Administration, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the Congressional Budget Office, the New York State Moreland Act Commission on Nursing Homes and Residential Facilities, and the New York City Department of Health. He received his B.A. from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from Harvard University.

For more information on RTI International, visit www.RTI.org.

Brian Burwell
Brian Burwell is Vice President for Chronic Care and Disability at Thomson/MEDSTAT, a health information technology company. Mr. Burwell oversees MEDSTAT's state and federal government studies related to disability and long-term care research. He has conducted scores of studies focusing on Medicaid, long-term care policy, supports for persons with disabilities, and managed care delivery. His most recent work includes an examination of the future of managed long term care for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE); the creation of a national database on Medicaid home and community-based service waivers for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS); the design and implementation of a Long-Term Care Consumer Awareness Campaign for HHS; and a review of Medicaid estate recovery policies and practices for ASPE. Mr. Burwell received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College.

For more information on Thomson/MEDSTAT visit www.medstat.com.