OUR HISTORY

In 1973 Stephen W. Gamble, President of the Hospital Council of Southern California, and James E. Ludlam, Esq., with Musick Peeler & Garrett and legal counsel to numerous healthcare organizations, formed the Hospital Educational Research Foundation of Southern California (the name later changed to the National Health Foundation). The purpose of this new charitable organization was to conduct research and educational programs related to the delivery of healthcare, particularly in a hospital setting.

In 1974 the newly formed Foundation was successful in securing funding from the Kellogg Foundation to develop a bioengineering program for hospitals. This proved to be a very successful project and helped shape new policies and procedures regarding how best to handle biological waste.

During the 1980s, the Foundation created several permanent exhibits at the California Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles. The first exhibit called "Health for Life" was completed in time for the 1984 Olympics, which brought hundreds of thousands of visitors to the Museum. The exhibit focused on the human body, athletics, fitness and overall physical and emotional well-being. The second exhibit, "Lifestyle Choices," completed in 1989, provided instructive interactive games for young people exposed to drug and alcohol abuse. First Lady Nancy Reagan participated in the opening of the Lifestyle Choices exhibit that the ARCO Foundation had primarily funded, along with support from local hospitals.

During the same period, the mission of the Hospital Educational Foundation of Southern California changed to reflect a new direction. The Board responded to the change in direction by re-naming the organization "National Health Foundation (NHF)," representing a new focus on health and health promotion while giving NHF the ability to use the Foundation’s Southern California location to conduct applied research that could have implications for the entire country.

The change in direction presented a new focus on access to care for all populations that continues to date. Starting in 1990, NHF hired the first CEO, Rita Moya who created a Trustee membership support group to raise unrestricted funds. NHF also began several projects that focused on educating Medi-Cal eligible women in prenatal care, investigated access to care in Los Angeles and published a report titled “Closing the Gap” to document the extent of the uninsured problem, and was instrumental in creating public education programs. NHF also created two sustaining organizations: the Community Health Councils and the Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles County. Additionally, NHF began integrating Information technology as a tool for enhancing health and in 1995, with a gift of $2.5 million from Blue Cross, created an Endowment.

The NHF Board established an overall endowment goal of $5 million in 1995. Their success would not be in merely raising the funds, but in developing new projects as a result of access to early seed money. By 1998 the Board of Directors had raised $3.6 million by creating three endowments:

• The Stephen W. Gamble Endowment, which was established to provide seed money for new projects to promote and support more effective health care delivery and better personal health.
• The James E. Ludlam Endowment, the purpose of which was to provide seed funding for new and/or innovative projects that NHF seeks to develop to better serve emergent health care needs.
• The Rita Moya Center for Healthcare Information Technology Endowment Fund, which was established as a tribute to NHF’s past CEO Rita Moya and in honor of her long commitment to NHF.

In 2002, to continue NHF’s history of growth and evolution, J. Eugene Grigsby, III was brought on as President and CEO of NHF. It was at this point that Dr. Grigsby and the NHF Board, in an attempt to focus resources and guide growth, reviewed ongoing projects, identified organizational strengths and considered impending health care issues. From that effort, three themes emerged and were identified as the organization’s strategic initiatives: (1) Uninsured Children and Families; (2) Chronic Disease Prevention and Management; and (3) Healthcare Delivery Systems.

Since that time, NHF has been feverishly pursuing research, evaluation, collaborative and service projects that address these three crucial topics. Under the area of Uninsured Children and Families, NHF has established a solid reputation as a training agency for California’s Application Assistors, who play a critical role in helping families access health care coverage. NHF’s “Children’s Health Access and Medical Program” (CHAMP), is the foundation of this training effort and is coupled with “CHAMP-Net” (www.champ-net.org), a website that provides up-to-date enrollment and coverage information for Assistors across the state. NHF has made great strides in addressing their strategic initiative of Chronic Disease Prevention and Management. As facilitators of the Los Angeles Chronic Disease Management Consortium, NHF has helped to plan, implement and evaluate successful community-based programs designed to address threatening chronic diseases such as asthma, type 2 diabetes, and childhood obesity. In 2008, the Consortium produced a replication packet for the “Healthy Eating Lifestyles Program” (HELP), which successfully helped families with overweight children to become more fit by teaching them how to eat healthily and how to incorporate more physical activities into their daily lives. In 2009, the Consortium will launch a fourth program to address cardiovascular disease.

To address the third strategic initiative of Healthcare Delivery Systems, NHF has spearheaded a number of research, service, and publication projects. In response to the 2002 Los Angeles County’s Department of Health Services’ Restructuring, NHF was contracted by HASC, California HealthCare Foundation and The California Endowment to assess the impact of implementing “Scenario III” of the restructuring. This “Scenario III Impact Study” demonstrated anticipated outcomes for hospitals, patients and the community and was utilized for ongoing advocacy efforts. In 2005, the Hospital Association of Southern California (HASC) funded NHF to conduct the “Los Angeles County Self Pay Study” in response to growing private sector concern about perceived increases in uninsured patient use of emergency and inpatient resources. In 2006, NHF teamed up with public, private and government agencies to launch the “Recuperative Care Demonstration Project,” which sought to double the number of recuperative care beds available to homeless patients discharged from the hospital. A year later, in 2007, the “Harold Cares About your Future: Pregnant and Parenting Teens Program” was initiated to assist teenage mothers in graduating from high school, preparing for college or the workforce, and avoiding subsequent pregnancies. Also, in 2007, NHF began the “LA County Pandemic Flu Supply Model” project in order to create a model that would inform decision makers about hospital bed supply in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak. Through all this, NHF has continued to conduct other research and evaluation projects which have resulted in publications such as “When Compassion is the Cure: The Case for Hospital-Based Palliative Care” and “Health Care in Southern California: Perception vs. Fact.” These and other publication can be found here.

In the coming years, under the direction of Dr. Grigsby, NHF will continue to bridge gaps in health care by improving the quality of and access to health care. Furthermore, NHF has undertaken an effort to bring the organization to a national level, where greater impact and outreach can occur. After more than 35 years of improving health care, NHF will continue to anticipate community needs and evolve to meet them.