Ep. 42: Kari Bruffett serves as president and CEO at Kansas Health Institute. With extensive experience in national and state health policy, she has advanced efforts at KHI to support effective policymaking through new and enhanced services while continuing to ensure high-quality, objective research, education and engagement.

She previously served as KHI’s vice president for policy and led the organization’s policy activities, business operations and strategic planning. Prior to KHI, Kari held executive leadership roles in the health and human services sector of state government. She served as secretary of the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services and as the director of the Division of Health Care Finance at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment. She also served eight years in government affairs at The University of Kansas Hospital and four years in Washington, D.C., as a congressional staffer.

Kari currently serves on the board of directors for the National Network of Public Health Institutes and for Midland Care and is a member of the Strategic Advisory Board for the Healthcare Institute for Innovations in Quality.

Listen now, and learn how Kari is an innovative leader in Kansas.

For more about the Health Fund: https://healthfund.org/

Ep. 41: Chase Blasi serves as a Kansas senator and the Senate majority leader. He is a fifth-generation Kansan who grew up in West Sedgwick County. He represents Senate District 26 in the Kansas Legislature.

He is entering his fourth year of service as a senator and his second year as senate majority leader. He became the youngest person to serve in either position.

In this episode, he discusses his journey into politics and how being a young senator has brought a new perspective to the Senate. He also discusses his focus on child health issues for this session.

Listen now, and learn how Senator Blasi is an innovative leader in Kansas.

For more about the Health Fund: https://healthfund.org/

RERUN - Pioneers in Health Episode 16, January 23, 2025 – Courtney Younglove, MD, FOMA, FACOG, DABOM

Dr. Younglove understands the battle with obesity. She began her struggles with excess weight in adolescence. Prior to getting her degree in Obesity Medicine, she gained and lost the same forty pounds at least twenty times. She is also a busy single mother of three boys and understands how tempting it is to forego healthy foods in order to get something on the table between school, work, and obligations. She brings her own personal life experience into the exam room along with her medical knowledge. Dr. Younglove has a passion for living a healthy life and believes that everyone deserves the opportunity to live a life of wellness: physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Dr. Younglove is board-certified in both Obesity Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology. She recently earned her fellowship in the Obesity Medicine Association – a designation earned by only 70 people so far. She received her undergraduate degree from The University of Kansas in 1997 and her Doctor of Medicine from The University of Kansas School of Medicine four years later. She has practiced medicine in the greater Kansas City area for over 18 years and has practiced Obesity Medicine since 2015. During the course of her career, Dr. Younglove has received many awards, including being named one of the “Best Doctors in America” for five years, as featured in the Kansas City Business Journal.

Ep. 39: Janet Stanek is the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE), appointed by Governor Laura Kelly. KDHE has three divisions, including Health, Environment, and Health Care Finance, which includes the Medicaid program (KanCare) and the State Employee Health Benefits Plan, where Stanek previously served as the Director.

Stanek holds a graduate certificate in population health from Thomas Jefferson University, an MBA from Alfred University (NY) and a Bachelor of Science degree in health information management from the State University of New York Polytechnic Institute, Utica, New York. She is also a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, and is a Registered Health Information Administrator.

Prior to her role with the State Employee Health Benefits Plan, Stanek spent more than 35 years in various health care leadership positions in Pennsylvania, western New York and Kansas, including 21 years of her career at Stormont Vail Health Topeka where she last served as chief operating officer and senior vice president. While with Stormont Vail, she oversaw a wide array of clinical and non-clinical functions and departments, as well as the strategic selection and rollout of a sophisticated electronic health record system across the region. Her most recent work involved focusing on population health, accountable care organization development and the transition to value-based care delivery.

Listen now, and learn how Secretary Stanek is an innovative leader in health care.

For more about the Health Fund: https://healthfund.org/

Ep. 38: Mark Fleury, Ph.D. is a policy principal for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN), where he has worked since 2013. He specializes in research, drug development, and regulatory policies along with other science and technology related projects.

He has worked on reform of diagnostic testing oversight, drug shortages, helped lead a coalition in 2016 that authored a landscape report on drug development challenges in pediatric cancer, and led another coalition in 2017 that created a report and recommendations focused on overcoming cancer clinical trial enrollment barriers. He is currently the principal investigator on a clinical trial testing the effectiveness of a new clinical trial screening tool.

Throughout his work, Mark has striven to incorporate patient perspectives into inherently science-based issues, advocating for the inclusion of patients as partners throughout the bench to bedside translation of science. He holds a PhD in bioengineering from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland, conducted post-doctoral research at MIT, and previous policy experience includes time as a staffer to a U.S senator.

Listen now, and learn how Mark is an innovative leader in health care.

For more about the Health Fund: https://healthfund.org/

Ep. 37: Jodi Schmidt serves as the executive director of the Care Collaborative at the University of Kansas Health System. The Care Collaborative is a patient safety organization dedicated to delivering high-quality clinical care to improve the health of people living in rural Kansas communities. Founded in 2014 and accredited by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the collaborative is a network of healthcare providers and care teams who use evidence-based treatment models to achieve the best outcomes.

Jodi is a past president of the National Rural Health Association and representative to the American Hospital Association’s Small and Rural Hospital Governing Council; past Chair of the Kansas Hospital Education and Research Foundation and member of the Kansas Hospital Association’s Rural Emergency Hospital task force; and Sunflower Health Plan’s rural and community advisory boards.

Listen now, and learn how Jodi is an innovative leader in health care.

For more about the Health Fund: https://healthfund.org/

Ep. 36: Corey Scurlock, MD, MBA, is the founder and CEO of Equum Medical. Dr. Scurlock is an Intensive Care Specialist with a deep background in acute care telemedicine, starting his first program in 2011. As the CEO and founder of Equum, Dr. Scurlock has grown it from its original singular hospital and service capabilities to over 100 hospitals with a footprint of purpose-built, digitally enabled clinical services across the hospital acute (inpatient) care continuum and post-acute facilities. Equum Medical today is nationally recognized as a leader in the telehealth services and clinical workforce marketplace with demonstrated results across Multi-Specialty, Tele-Critical Care, Virtual Nursing, Virtual Sitter and Telemetry implementations. As a thought leader in digital health, Dr. Scurlock is a frequent contributor in the Forbes Business Council author series and his insights and vision have been shared through global events such as HIMSS, American Telemedicine Association, National Rural Health Association and more.

Prior to founding Equum Medical, he served as Medical Director of eHealth at New York Medical College where he introduced multiple acute care telehealth programs with the eICU/Philips program achieving highest ranking in quality in the nation for three years in a row. Scurlock’s program growth extended to new care areas, including tele-sitter, where he was responsible for the implementation and operation of a system generating over 250,000 hours of monitoring. His pioneering work in virtual care helped scale Hicuity Health (Advanced ICU Care) tele-ICU service with multiple monitoring centers and physicians directly reporting to him. Before becoming involved in telemedicine, Dr. Scurlock was active in academic medicine serving as the Director of the CVICU at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Manhattan.

Listen now, and learn how Dr. Scurlock is an innovative leader in health care.

For more about the Health Fund: https://healthfund.org/

Ep. 35: Ryan Lester, MPH, serves as Vice President, Education, Health of the Public and Science at the American Academy of Family Physicians. He previously served as the bureau chief of health promotion at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a leadership coach and adjunct professor at Washburn University for population health.

He has a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from the University of Kansas, which spurred his passion for environmental health issues and a master’s in public health with a concentration in public health administration from the University of Kansas Medical Center.

Past volunteer roles include treasurer and president-elect for the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors and the chair of the Olathe Housing Authority Board.

Listen now, and learn how Ryan is an innovative leader in health care.

For more about the Health Fund: https://healthfund.org/