THIS WEEK'S EDITOR:
Justin Salters is a strategic communications consultant specializing in corporate affairs and stakeholder engagement. He and his wife, Emily, life in southwest Bakersfield with their two daughters, Pierce and Ivy, son, Kip, and rescue dog, Trigger. Justin has been a member of the Rotary Club of Bakersfield since September 2021.
Invocation: Ken Buerman
Flag Salute: Mike McCoy
Song: “Jingle Bells” – acapella
Greeter: Randy Saunders
Roving Mic: Justin Leland
Guests:
- Juan Bustamante brought his coworker, Aaron Klassen.
- Steve Rodrigue brought his youngest daughter, Ashlyn, a freshman at Highland. Steve also shared that Ashlyn’s J.V. soccer team won the South High tournament over the weekend, beating 16 teams to come out on top.
- Vernon Harper was joined by Markel Quarles, Associate Vice President for Student Affairs & Student Services at CSUB.
Good News & Announcements:
Justin Leland shared that at last week’s Moneywise Christmas Party, Garro Ellis not only joined the party, but was able to walk, unassisted, from his car into the party.
Rotarians Out and About: President Kristen Watson shared some paparazzi photos from the weekend and asked Nik Boone to share about a major event that took place last Saturday. Boone celebrated the 10 year anniversary of his company, Ascend Real Estate. In “true Boone fashion,” it was absolutely over the top: fire dancers, indoor pyrotechnics and a lot of masks. Editor’s Note: Was anyone surprised?
Program
President Kristen Watson introduced
Traco Matthews, Chief Health Equity Officer at Kern Health Systems (KHS), who joined us to provide an overview of KHS and the work he is helping lead to make Kern County a healthier place. Traco has been with KHS for a little more than 2 years, after a career of impact and influence in Kern County that includes leadership roles at CAPK, Kern County Superintendent of Schools, Aera Energy and State Farm. In addition to his primary vocation, Traco is the Pastor of
Church of God, Bakersfield and husband to the lovely Dr. Jessica Grimes.
Before Traco got to the meat of his presentation, he answered the top question all of us wanted to ask: where the heck have you been these past two years? It turns out that after joining KHS, Traco moved his Rotary members to East as KHS’s CEO, Emily Duran, is also a member of our club, and their team has a general agreement to spread the C-suite love across Bakersfield’s Rotary Clubs.
Shifting gears, Traco gave us an insightful view into the state of healthcare across the U.S. and in Kern County in particular.
KHS provides Kern County’s public-option for Medi-Cal insurance through its Kern Family Healthcare product. KHS has more than 403,000 members, representing 90% of the local market for Medi-Cal and more than half of children in Kern County.
- 50% of children in the U.S. are on Medicaid
- 70% of U.S. citizens are on some form of government-subsidized health insurance plan
- Medicaid (called Medi-Cal in California) provides insurance for low income families, children and pregnant women.
- Medicare is the public insurance option for individuals over the age of 65 and certain other special populations
KHS was founded in 1986, and its mission is “health and equity for all.” They do this through focusing on four key stakeholders: members, employees, providers and the community. Traco explained health equity for his members as taking into account affordability, access, quality of care and member experience.
Increasingly, KHS and other insurers are working to address the social determinants of health (SDOH), to work upstream and address social factors (things like employment, language, transportation) to prevent illness from taking place.
They’re pursuing innovative projects, like partnering with elementary schools in rural areas to bring mobile clinics and provide wellness checks and primary care for their members. Offering incentives to providers to shift their service hours and enable populations with less-flexible job schedules to get appointments, and investing in healthcare education programs to ensure we have the workforce needed to meet our community’s growing demand for healthcare.
There’s a lot of work to be done, and little of it is easy. But, working together with partners like KHS we can help to improve the health and wellbeing for every resident of Kern County.
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