News Release
$3.9 Million Helmsley Charitable Trust
Grant Helps KFF Establish Kaiser Health News Rural Health Reporting Desk
Reporters Will Produce
Explanatory, Enterprise, and Investigative Reporting on Rural Health Care
Jan. 27, 2022 — SAN
FRANCISCO and SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — KFF is expanding its KHN (Kaiser Health
News) operation by establishing a rural health reporting desk supported
by a $3.9 million grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley
Charitable Trust.
KFF
will expand KHN’s editorial staff and build a team of journalists and
social media experts in the states of Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska,
Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Full-time reporters and
freelancers from those states and KHN’s national newsroom will produce
and distribute explanatory, enterprise, and investigative stories on
health care issues relevant to rural communities.
The team of journalists
will provide unbiased, accurate, and trusted reporting on a wide range of
complex issues, including the ongoing pandemic, access to health coverage
and care, the burden of health care costs on consumers, housing and
education, the opioid epidemic, mental health, hospital closures, the
lack of critical lifesaving equipment, and burgeoning changes in
telehealth and medicine. KHN will partner with local media throughout the
region to produce deeply sourced stories that shed light on underreported
issues.
As
with all its journalism, KHN stories produced by the Rural Health Desk
will be made freely
available for publication by media outlets across the country,
published on khn.org and distributed through KHN’s social media
platforms.
“Rural America’s low
population density provides significant challenges in the delivery of
health care services, yet at the same time dedicated providers are
delivering top-notch care through innovative practices, like
state-of-the-art telemedicine,” said Walter Panzirer, a Trustee for the
Helmsley Charitable Trust. “KHN’s new rural health reporting desk will
dive deep into these challenges and highlight efforts that ensure a
person’s ZIP code doesn’t determine their healthcare outcomes.”
“Rural
health needs more attention, and with this grant we can deliver that,”
said KFF President and CEO Drew Altman, who is also KHN’s founding
publisher. “We are excited to expand our work in this essential area, and
we are grateful for the support of the Helmsley Charitable Trust.”
The establishment of the
Rural Health Desk follows news last summer that KHN is opening an
Atlanta-based Southern Bureau to produce more journalism focused on
health, race, equity, and poverty in the region. KHN also operates
regional bureaus in California, the Midwest, and the Mountain States.
Media organizations
interested in working with KHN should contact us at KHNPartnerships@kff.org and
those interested in joining our efforts to expand and improve health
journalism in rural America and beyond should contact KFF at healthjournalism@kff.org.
Employment opportunities for the Rural Health Desk will be posted soon here.
About KFF and KHN
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth
journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and
Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser
Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing
information on health issues to the nation.
About the Helmsley Charitable Trust
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust aspires to improve
lives by supporting exceptional efforts in the U.S. and around the world
in health and select place-based initiatives. Since beginning active
grantmaking in 2008, Helmsley has committed more than $3 billion for a
wide range of charitable purposes. Helmsley’s Rural Healthcare Program
funds innovative projects that use information technologies to connect
rural patients to emergency medical care, bring the latest medical
therapies to patients in remote areas, and provide state-of-the-art
training for rural hospitals and EMS personnel. To date, this program has
awarded more than $500 million to organizations and initiatives in the
states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Minnesota, Iowa,
Montana, and Nevada. For more information, visit here.
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