Facilitating effective healthcare policy formulation

Health policy is increasingly shaped by national, state, and local public advisory committees. Health professionals selected to serve on these committees must be prepared to deal not only with considerable amounts of data, but also with widely varying interpretations of those data. In addition, they must be prepared to deal with different political and personal perspectives, including those of nonhealth professionals. The successful management of that broad range of professional and cultural diversity affects the extent to which different perspectives are successfully integrated into final committee recommendations. This article offers suggestions to future advisory committee members on facilitating effective healthcare policy formulation.