KHS gives out $20 million to tackle Kern County’s biggest health needs
Kern’s largest health plan, dipping again into its financial reserves for the sake of local underserved communities, on Thursday came up with $20 million to help address what it sees as the biggest challenges facing the delivery of health care across the county.
Half the money Kern Health Systems announced giving local partners will go toward its top priority of expanding the county’s health-care workforce. The rest is being divided among three other pressing concerns, in this order: improving access to care, recruiting and retaining medical professionals, and broadening provision of social services with the help of community organizations.
The generosity on display at a lunchtime event outside its headquarters on Buck Owens Boulevard was notable not for its lavishness, in that it gave out the same per-year amount in 2021. What made this year’s grants special for the Medi-Cal plan administrator serving 411,000 local residents was the focus it brought to the process this time around.
KHS CEO Emily Duran opened her presentation with an illustration from her personal life: Even though her family has private health insurance, she was unable Thursday morning to get a medical appointment for her young daughter suffering from an earache. She said one reason was that there just aren’t enough doctors in the community.
“We need to ensure that we have access to quality … providers in our community,” Duran said.
Doing so, according to the plan she unveiled, will involve spreading around money from KHS’ $300 million-plus surplus to supplement the finances available to some of the county’s largest health-care and educational institutions.
The largest single award — $4 million — went to Kern Medical, where Chief Medical Officer Dr. Glenn Goldis said the grant will help the hospital recruit up to 15 fellow doctors over the next two years, establish new academic affiliation agreements, hire surgical specialists, seek out clinical trials to improve medical outcomes and establish endocrine, urology and addiction medicine fellowships.
The second-biggest grantee, Clinica Sierra Vista, expects to use some of its $2 million to expand its residency program to go from eight physicians per year to 12.
As part of that, CEO
Dr. Olga Meave said, the community health network intends to build a new facility to train its residents in areas of medicine including behavioral health, dentistry and virtual care, while also extending the hours during which Clinica provides acute care and pharmacy services. She added the KHS money will also allow Clinica to offer signing and retention bonuses.
Cal State Bakersfield was granted $1 million that Interim President Vernon B. Harper Jr. said will go toward establishing a doctoral program in nursing that will help address high rates of poverty in the Central Valley, low life expectancy and a variety of chronic conditions.
“You’ve stepped forward to help without a second to lose,” Harper said, referring to KHS.
President Sean Hancock of Cerro Coso Community College said the Ridgecrest-based institution will use its $300,000 KHS grant to begin training nurses who will, hopefully, stay in the local area to help improve the area’s quality of care. Some of the money will be used to hire lab technicians and support staff, he added.
Also receiving grants as part of KHS’s healthcare workforce expansion initiative were Dignity
Health ($1 million), Good Samaritan Hospital ($1 million), Bakersfield College ($300,000), Taft College ($300,000) and Adventist Health ($100,000).
KHS set aside $5 million for increasing access to preventive health-care services such as providing immunizations, mammograms and lead screenings. Among 10 recipients, Omni Family Health got the most money, at a little over $1.5 million, followed by Kern Medical with almost $1.4 million and Clinica with more than $1.1 million.
For the purposes of recruiting and retaining medical providers, KHS awarded $3 million to 20 organizations. Omni Family Health got the most — $900,294 — following by Clinica with $681,975. Kern Valley HealthCare District was next with $95,000.
KHS dedicated $2 million in grants to 15 community organizations. Six received $200,000 each: Building Healthy Communities, California Farmworker Foundation, Community Interventions, Kern County Cancer Foundation, United Way of Kern County and Visión y Compromiso.
KHS Chairwoman Kristen Watson said after the event the amount of money being given out wasn’t as groundbreaking as the way the awards were focused on getting to the root causes of the county’s lagging medical outcomes.
“What’s extraordinary is that this type of really getting to the foundational level — this workforce development — this is extraordinary,” Watson said. “This has not happened.”