Company Profile
Kansas Health Institute
Company Overview
Vision and Mission
The Kansas Health Institute is an independent, nonprofit health policy and research organization that informs policymakers about important issues affecting the health of Kansans.
Our Vision
Healthier Kansans through informed policy that addresses the many factors influencing health.
Our Mission
To inform policymakers by identifying, producing, analyzing and communicating information that is timely, relevant and objective.
To actualize our vision and achieve our mission, we believe that a broad approach is needed. To make decisions that optimize the health of Kansans, policymakers must understand how our health is influenced by a range of factors. Among these are the lifestyle choices we make, our socioeconomic status, our diversity, our schools, the quality and connectedness of our communities and the financing, organization and effectiveness of our public health and health care systems.
KHI carries out its mission of helping policymakers understand the linkages between these factors and the health of Kansans in several ways. We conduct research and provide policy analysis. We convene conversations and sponsor educational forums. And we provide in-depth coverage of urgent and emerging issues through the KHI News Service.
Our Organizational Values
• Health is an essential component of well-being.
• A number of social and community factors, in addition to medical care, are important in determining how healthy we are as communities and as a state.
• Transformation of the health system is necessary to better focus on improving the health of populations.
• Improving the health of our state as a whole requires addressing disparities in health that exist among vulnerable populations.
• Health improvement efforts should incorporate a life-course perspective placing appropriate emphasis on prevention and early childhood.
• More effective framing of health policy issues will assist policymakers in better understanding the problems and identifying effective policy options.
• Information provided by KHI will be non-partisan, data-driven and evidence-based.
• Public/private partnerships and collaboration with strong, independent organizations (including government, higher education, philanthropy, non-governmental organizations and private business) are necessary to improve health.
• We will be effective stewards of the resources entrusted to us.
• We will value our employees and invest in their success.
Company History
The Kansas Health Institute was established in 1995 by the Kansas Health Foundation to be an information resource for state policymakers. The foundation made the commitment based on its conclusion that health policy decisions often were based on fragmented, anecdotal and sometimes biased information.
At the time, KHI was unique in its status as a state-focused health policy organization that was independent, non-university based, and supported primarily by philanthropy. Since then, Colorado and Ohio have established similar institutes and other states are exploring this model.
KHI continues to be sustained by a core operating grant from the Kansas Health Foundation, but also obtains significant project-specific funding from other foundations, as well as state and federal agencies. The annual budget has grown to slightly more than $3 million.
KHI staff members are drawn from diverse disciplines, including medicine, public and community health, health policy and management, law, anthropology, political science, sociology, health administration, engineering, communications, journalism and business. In addition, the work of KHI involves numerous consultants who provide additional expertise on selected projects.
The mission of the institute is to inform policymakers by identifying, producing, analyzing and communicating information that is timely, relevant and objective. As a part of that mission, KHI works to help policymakers understand how the health of Kansans is influenced by a wide range of factors, including socioeconomic status, cultural diversity, lifestyle choices, the quality of communities and the financing, organization and effectiveness of our public health and health care systems.
The institute has been headed since 1998 by Robert F. St. Peter, M.D. Its founding president was Charles Gessert, M.D., who served from 1995 to 1997. After Gessert, Alvin Tarlov, M.D. served as interim president until St. Peter’s arrival in 1998.