Weil to leave NASHP for Health Affairs top spot

The head of one of the leading organizations for state health policy is stepping down to take over one of country's leading journals on healthcare policy.

Alan Weil, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy plans to leave his post at the end of May after 10 years there to become the new editor-in-chief for the journal Health Affairs.

“Health Affairs is such a critical resource for my community,” Weil said. “The opportunity to lead the journal through this exciting time was too good to pass up.”

As for the journal's direction, Weil said Health Affairs would continue its core competencies of providing peer-reviewed studies and original reporting on issues affecting health policy. A possible change could involve efforts to broaden the journal's reach to include those outside of the health policy community.

“I think there are many communities outside of the core health policy community that are interested in what is in the journal and I would like to reach more of them,” Weil said

“Alan Weil has led NASHP through a major transition to become a leading voice for issues affecting states in the healthcare arena,” said Maggie Alegría, chair of the NASHP's governing board, the Center for Health Policy Development, and director of the Center for Multicultural Mental Health Research at the Cambridge Health Alliance, in a written release.

Weil has led the NASHP since 2004 and has served as executive director for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing and as a policy adviser to then-Colorado Gov. Roy Romer. Weil has also served as assistant general counsel in the Massachusetts Department of Medical Security.

Weil replaces founding editor John Iglehart, who retired in 2007 but returned to the publication last April on an interim basis after then-Editor-in-Chief Susan Dentzer left.

“Alan Weil's extensive background in health and healthcare policy will serve him well in his new role as Health Affairs' editor-in-chief,” Iglehart said in a written release. “With his position on the front lines of health system change, he is an experienced leader who has deep familiarity with and long-standing connections to the health policy, research and healthcare leadership communities.”

In addition to his leadership role with the NASHP, Weil serves on Health Affairs' editorial board and as a member of the Institute of Medicine's Board on Health Care Services, the Commonwealth Fund's Commission on a High Performance Health System, and the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

A lawyer by training, Weil is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Harvard Law School.

It is undecided at this point what role, if any, Iglehart will play with Health Affairs once the transition takes place, a journal spokeswoman said.

Weil is scheduled to begin at Health Affairs on June 2.

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