US Health

Throughout its 30-year history, Burness has stood at the front edges of health policy change, generating visibility of vast disparities in access to and quality of health care, and catalyzing action to improve overall health. This has included the Cover the Uninsured Campaign, a major initiative to advance end-of-life care, changes to graduate medical education and a national commission’s call to close medical schools, as well as state-by-state Medicaid changes to enable payment to family caregivers.

Burness has helped spearhead a national movement to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic, worked to establish the now common understanding that there is more to health than health care, and in the process, helped spark a transformation in how communities approach health that is built on the collaboration of multiple sectors.

As the nation broadens its definition of what is needed to create a “culture of health,” the players needed to generate opportunities to pursue health and sustain it over time, Burness is working alongside foundations, thought leaders, health professionals and community leaders to push innovation and adoption of new strategies. This includes tackling how to harness vast volumes of health information to improve personal and population health; working to dramatically change the dental delivery system, creating dental therapists to expand access to dental care; and spurring efforts to reduce health disparities and ensure that vulnerable populations have greater access to health care where and when they need it.

Today, we are actively employing a broad range of strategies to generate action on initiatives aimed at reducing health disparities and reaching vulnerable, and low-income people.