Health foundation presents $1M to Ozarks groups

Five Springfield-area nonprofit groups received grants totaling more than $1 million to help support efforts to improve Missourians’ health.

The local funds are part of a $5.8 million round of grants from Missouri Foundation for Health, according to a news release from the St. Louis-based organization.

Two grants were made through the foundation’s Patient-Centered Medical Home funding program, as part of the program’s ACCESS – or Advancing Chronic Care through Excellence in Systems and Support – initiative to coordinate care for patients with multiple chronic illnesses.

Under the ACCESS Program:

• Springfield-based Advocates for a Healthy Community Inc. received  $295,087 to help integrate services for patients with diabetes, asthma, heart disease and depression; and

• CoxHealth received $300,000 to create a collaborative care center for patients with multiple health conditions.

Grants also were awarded through the foundation’s Basic Support and Health Care Workforce Development programs. Other groups receiving funding are:

• Home Parenteral Services, which received $200,000 to help poor and uninsured residents who outpatient infusion therapy;

• Safe at Home, Springfield, which received $24,000 to help the organization provide low-income individuals with personal emergency response assistance and in-home medication dispensing systems;

• CoxHealth, which received an additional $147,653 that the system will use to encourage students to consider working in health care through career fairs, school visits, volunteering, job shadowing and facility tours; and

• Faith Community Health in Branson, which received $40,000 to provide wellness, nutrition, education, and physical and mental health services for the uninsured.

The Missouri Foundation for Health, established in 2000, is a nongovernmental provider of funding for community health activities in the state. Since its inception, the organization has issued more than $380 million in grants and awards, the release said.[[In-content Ad]]