A newly formed board for health care education in Springfield held its first meeting Tuesday to determine start-up details.
The governing board for the Alliance for Healthcare Education chose Grenita Lathan, superintendent of Springfield Public Schools, to be its chair. Jennifer Hogan, secretary to the Ozarks Technical Community College Board of Trustees, was picked to be the group's secretary.
The board approved setting an initial seed payment of $49,861, to be paid by the alliance's four founder participants. The boards of each of the founders will approve those payments during their upcoming meetings, Lathan said.
Lathan thanked staff members of each of the four partners for their work developing the alliance.
“This is truly a gamechanger for our community,” Lathan said. “There has been a buzz of conversation since we made our announcement about this.”
Announced in August, the Alliance for Healthcare Education is a partnership between Springfield Public Schools, Ozarks Technical Community College, Missouri State University and CoxHealth's Cox College.
Cox, SPS, OTC and MSU unveil unique alliance with pipeline for students seeking health care careers
Called the Alliance for Health Care Education, the group aims to help southwest Missouri students move through a common system as they pursue medical careers.
The alliance will establish a direct path for high school students to study for professions in the health care field, speeding access to certification and employment. It will dissolve Cox College's medical training programs and host MSU and OTC programs in its space. The OTC programs include dual-credit options for Springfield Public Schools students.
In its formational contract, the executive director of each founding partner serves as a board member for the alliance. In addition to Lathan, that includes MSU President Clif Smart, OTC President Hal Higdon and CoxHealth CEO Max Buetow.
During Tuesday's meeting, the board also set up a bank account with Commerce Bank to handle its finances, and approved the purchase of an insurance policy for its director and officers, which have not yet been hired.
One of the next steps will be to hire a director to act as an executive officer for the board. Lathan said the alliance will look at local and national candidates, and hopes to have someone hired by January.
“Our goal is to look for someone that has CEO-level experience leading large organizations, and has experience with fundraising opportunities,” Lathan said. “It could be in business, education or both. We're looking for the best candidate to bring all of our organizations together, and truly push the mission of the alliance.”
Another pressing goal is to establish a health care path in the SPS Choice program between SPS and OTC.
Getting attention from lawmakers
The alliance, still in its early phases, has already captured attention from the state, said Zora Mulligan, MSU executive vice president, during a meeting Friday with the university's Board of Governors.
“One of the things they were most proud of was the fact of the partnership itself to have four major, significant community players coming together, all putting skin in the game,” Mulligan said. “All of us committing to some really bold goals was energizing to them.”
Mulligan said an upcoming phase is working on a plan to get state and federal funding for capital investments into Cox College.
“They have a lot of current good space,” Mulligan said during Friday's meeting. “But if we are going to grow, we need more of their space to be good, and less like a haunted hosptial. We have talked with state leaders about that, and we are going to form a plan for the four partners to develop a federal advocacy approach.”
