A board launched in 2009 to improve access to health care has shortened its name and is entering autumn with a new director and a new program aimed at making sure chronically ill patients can get the medications they need.
The Health Commission, an 18-member board of local government, health care, nonprofit and business leaders, was founded two years ago as The Springfield-Greene County Health Commission. Its mission is to build community partnerships that promote affordable, quality health care for the underserved, which includes the uninsured and underinsured populations.
Bob Lunn, Ph.D., took the helm as CEO July 1 after inaugural CEO Carmen Parker Bradshaw left the post.
“We had a great first director who found a way to bring us all together, and we think Dr. Lunn will do a great job of bringing us further into the operational phase,” said Steve Edwards, a member of the commission’s board of directors and executive vice president and chief operating officer for CoxHealth.
Lunn has degrees in psychology and health administration and a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He has 38 years of experience in the health care industry, most recently as the founding director of the Master’s in Health Administration at Missouri State University.
“I just thought this was a terrific opportunity,” Lunn said. “Not many communities have virtually everyone sitting around the table to tackle health care issues.”
The Health Commission’s funding has come from a $300,0000, three-year grant from the Missouri Foundation for Health and contributions from agencies and organizations. The commission works with a total budget of $750,000. In addition to the board of directors, the commission has seven advisory boards with 15 to 20 members apiece, bringing more voices into discussions about access to care in the Ozarks.
“It was very important not to have just all health care providers. The issue of access to health care is not just a health care problem, but a community problem – it affects everyone,” said Brooks Miller, a member of the board of directors and president and CEO of Jordan Valley Community Health Center.
One of the barriers to health care, for many people, is that they are uninsured. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of uninsured Americans grew to 50.7 million, or one in six U.S. residents, up from 47 million in 2009. The data shows that approximately 914,000 Missourians have no health insurance.
Lunn said the commission doesn’t have data showing the number of uninsured people in the Springfield area, but he said it could be as many as 40,000.
“Our vision is to hopefully help provide ideal quality health care that is sustainable and available for all people,” Lunn said.
Medication access
According to
www.thehealthcommission.org, the commission’s priorities include supporting affordable health coverage and sustainable fundamental change, and improving access to prescription medication. To help shape its efforts, the commission meets monthly and receives feedback and suggestions from the advisory boards.
The commission’s newest initiative, the Community Medication Access Program, launched July 1 and already has 500 uninsured and underinsured patients enrolled. The program helps participants apply for drug assistance programs through pharmaceutical companies.
Most of the participants have serious chronic conditions such as heart disease or diabetes, and Lunn said the commission hopes enrollment grows to 900 by the end of the year.
“The staff at the major providers take referrals from doctors to help patients fill out the paperwork for the programs,” Lunn said. “The idea is that if people can stay on their medication, they are less likely to get sick and visit the (emergency room), which also helps reduce costs for the hospitals.”
CoxHealth’s Edwards said for some chronically ill patients, staying healthy is as simple as taking their medications as prescribed, but if they don’t – or can’t afford to – they land in the emergency room.
“We think this program will help improve quality of patient care and help avoid hospital admissions, which will help save the hospitals money,” he said.
Since the program has only been operating a little more than a month, Lunn doesn’t have any data showing that the program is reducing hospital admissions for program participants.
Focus forward
While The Health Commission is concentrating on the medication access program, Lunn hopes the commission moves forward with other programs and initiatives in the coming year.
Working with the state of Missouri to make the Springfield area a demonstration site to get health information exchanges up and running may be one of the new initiatives, he said.
The exchanges are based on the idea that many people use health care services in multiple facilities, and they allow those facilities – with a patient’s consent – to share information in one database.
“We believe it can improve the quality and safety of patient care as well as allowing hospitals and medical facilities to collect data and share that data to better manage care,” Lunn said, pointing to the May 22 tornado in Joplin as an example of a situation when an exchange would be beneficial, as injured people were sent to hospitals in other cities.
Dr. Dave Muegge, medical coordinator for MSU’s Taylor Health and Wellness Center and a member of the commission’s board of directors, hopes other upcoming efforts will focus on helping underserved populations establish medical homes for primary care.
“I hope we will do more work on medical homes in the next 12 months. It will work to the benefit of the patient to improve health care, as well as reduce health care costs,” said Muegge, who also is coordinator of the commission’s Provider Services Advisory Board.[[In-content Ad]]
