The deepest economic downturn since The Great Depression and state and federal budget cuts increase the need to support better health care for Missourians n with less money.
That’s the conflicted mission of Dr. Will Ross, recently elected chairman of the board of directors for the Missouri Foundation for Health.
“We have to spend smartly and have to be more certain we can measure the effectiveness of our initiatives. There can be no sacred cows,” Ross said.
“We first want to assure the community of our intentions to provide funding to charities and nonprofits during this downturn.”
Ross is a nephrologist, associate dean for diversity and assistant professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, as well as a senior fellow at the Washington University Center for Health Policy. He joined the MFH board in 2004 and is a facilitator for the MFH Health Literacy Initiative.
“He’s been a consistent contributor in the health policy area, as well as disparities and medical matters,” said Dr. James Kimmey, MFH president and CEO.
The St. Louis area benefits greatly from the MFH. Area institutions received more than $18.3 million in MFH grants during the first nine months of last year for programs that address social factors affecting health.
“The Father’s Support Center received a $265,000 grant to encourage men to be more health-literate and proactive in their personal and family health care decisions,” Ross said.
He also cited a $216,000 grant to the Child Day Care Association, continued support to provide Gardisil (the HPV vaccine) to young women and funding for improving health to the St. Louis American Foundation and Clear Channel Radio.
Another effort he is particularly proud of is the grant awarded a year ago to fund the integration of community health centers.
“We provided a $3.5 million challenge grant that was used to increase capacity of the community health centers once they took over the primary care operations of ConnectCare,” Ross said.
“The St. Louis community benefits to this day from that sort of significant investment in our safety net infrastructure.”
However, he added, “More needs to be done, particularly in North St. Louis.”
To guide policy development, Ross said the foundation will garner input from key constituents as part of its strategic planning process. He plans to evaluate investments, broaden board committees to include new leaders, incorporate social determinants of health into policy and n crucially – integrate reducing health disparities, health literacy and affordable health care into all grant-making.
“My goal as chair is to convince Missourians and St. Louisans that we are there to advocate for quality, affordable healthcare and we’ve got to advocate for sustaining these vital nonprofits,” Ross said.
“We will always be there continuously advocating for the medically underserved and endeavoring to fulfill our core mission of improving the health of the communities we serve.”
The foundation’s ability to fulfill its mission is challenged by the economic climate.
“He’s coming in at somewhat of a difficult time, with the changes in the economy,” Kimmey said. “We lost about 30 percent because of the market, but the reduction in grants is about 7 percent in 2009.”
“We started out last year with our peak asset at $1.3 billion and went down to roughly $850 million,” Ross said.
“That’s a lot of money that could be going to provide nonprofit care for kids who have drug abuse or mothers who need prenatal care. That money is gone.”
Less money requires even more strategic investment in programs and policy, he said.
“As we see our assets dwindle, it becomes even more important to address the policy issues,” Ross said.
“We need to start looking at major policies that are perpetuating health care disparities, disparities regarding adequate funding for Medicaid and Child Health Insurance Programs, national policies that are addressing coverage of women during pregnancy, policies regarding food distribution like the WIC program.”
Ross identified the need for “universal health care coverage” as the most pressing need of all.
Ross was a charter member of the St. Louis Regional Health Commission and chair of the Commission’s Health Literacy Task Force from 2004-2007. He has served on numerous boards and is a past president of the Mound City Medical Forum, an organization of over 150 minority physicians.
Ross earned a bachelor of science from Yale University, his medical degree and fellowship in kidney diseases at Washington University and his master of public health at Saint Louis University.
The MFH serves 84 counties and the St. Louis area, and is one of the largest health care grant-making bodies in the country. It was created in 2000 as a result of Blue Cross Blue Shield transitioning from nonprofit to a for-profit organization.