Department of Finance & Administration
Mark Emkes, Commissioner

The Division of Health Planning has convened a State Health Plan Advisory Committee (Advisory Committee) whose members are experts in health care planning and policy. They serve as a sounding board for the Division of Health Planning and come from a variety of state, public, and business areas. The legislation that created the Division of Health Planning and charges it with developing a State Health Plan makes no provision for an advisory committee. Thus, the members of the Advisory Committee are volunteers with no formal role in the approval and adoption of the State Health Plan or in making revisions to the Certificate of Need standards are criteria.

The current members of the Advisory Committee are:

State Government Members:

Commissioner of Health – Susan R. Cooper
Commissioner of Mental Health – E. Douglas Varney
Comptroller of the Treasury, State of Tennessee – Justin Wilson
Commissioner of Finance and Administration – Mark Emkes
Chair of the House Health and Human Resources Committee – Rep. Glen Casada
Chair of the Senate General Welfare, Health, and Human Resources Committee – Sen. Rusty Crowe
Executive Director, Bureau of TennCare – Darin J. Gordon
Executive Director, Health Services and Development Agency – Melanie Hill
Director, Office of e-Health Initiatives – Will Rice
Director, Health Equities Commission – LaTonya Ellis

Non-State Government Members:

Arthur Maples - Baptist Memorial Hospital (Memphis), president of the American Health Planning Association
Bruce Duncan - Assistant Vice President, National HealthCare Corp.
David Locke - BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee
Mary Layne Van Cleve - COO, Tennessee Hospital Association
Albert J. Grobmyer, III, MD - Memphis, Tennessee Medical Association
Rita Geier - Senior Fellow for Public Health, the Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy, UT-Knoxville
Cristie Travis - Memphis Business Coalition on Health