Board of Directors
Board of Directors
For many years, Visiting Nurse Association (VNA Home Health) has been governed by a volunteer board of directors that includes several of Kansas City’s most highly esteemed business and community leaders. Our board members take an active role in community health outreach and work to improve the quality of life for residents of our great community.
Letter from the President
As the oldest home health agency in Kansas City and the sixth oldest in the entire country, the history and mission of VNA in Kansas City is truly fascinating to me because of the great story it tells, and yet also because of the tremendous responsibility we have moving forward. It’s a story of need, of commitment, of caring. And it’s a story of perseverance and greatness.
In 1891, citizens of Kansas City recognized a need to care for and educate the sick in their homes. To this day, that need still exists. The first board of directors was committed to the mission of providing care and health education to patients in their homes, based on need, and not on their ability to pay. To this day, that board commitment to the mission still exists. Lilly Major was hired as the first nurse, because she put her patients’ needs ahead of her own…quite simply, because she cared. To this day, that focus on caring still exists.
Throughout its past, the VNA has also encountered significant hurdles, along the way. Yet through all of these difficulties, VNA and its mission have always persevered. However, our perseverance through tomorrow, next year, the next decade, or the next 125 years, depends on the story we are writing today. Like many non-profit agencies, we will have significant hurdles to overcome just in the next few years alone. The healthcare environment in the U.S. is changing at a blistering pace. As a result, there will likely be significant changes to the post-acute care models, as we know them today. Our challenge…our responsibility, will be figuring out a way to continue delivering the care patients of this community deserve, without sacrificing the mission, upon which we were founded.
And that foundation will continue to act as our guiding principle in every aspect of VNA. Whether it’s providing exceptional one-on-one care to our patients, providing health education through our Community Outreach program to a group of elderly at a low-income senior center, or creating innovative care solutions that are cutting edge, we will always keep the patient at the heart of what we do. It’s the VNA Way.
VNA Corporation Board of Directors
- Catherine Banes
- Linda Clarkson
- Al Cohen
- Betty Crooker
- Brad Evans
- Tom Langenberg
- Barbara MacArthur
- Russ Melchert
- Scott Mitchell
- Larkin O’Keefe
VNA Foundation Board of Directors
- Nancy DeBasio
- Brad Evans
- Chris Harris
- Sheryl Feutz-Harter
- Gregg Radke
- Terry Weather