Dave Miglin is Chair of the Broadlawns Board of Trustees.

In January 2021, the people of Polk County made their voices heard and I was honored to be appointed as a Trustee for Broadlawns Medical Center to complete the term of retired Trustee, Mary Fuller. At that time, our county hospital was dealing with an extraordinary health care crisis (COVID-19) and internal transition brought by the retirement of longtime CEO Jody Jenner. Those months of transition and uncertainty could have easily derailed the positive momentum that was underway at Broadlawns – but it didn’t.

Together with my fellow Trustees, our hospital leadership, and community partners, Broadlawns not only survived these trying times, but it has flourished. Since I joined the Board, we have started or completed many projects that will help Polk County families for years to come, including:

Rachel Bruns is a volunteer advocate for quality maternal health care in Iowa.

In August, I spoke to the Broadlawns Board of Trustees for the third time in the past four years.

You can read my comments from my first time speaking during their citizen comment period in July 2018 when I was five months pregnant and looking for VBAC supportive care for the birth of my second child. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this experience launched my maternal health advocacy.

Dr. Mary Krieg and Janet Metcalf co-authored this endorsement of their colleagues on the Broadlawns Board of Trustees, Bill Taber and Kavi Chawla. -promoted by Laura Belin

Since 1924, Broadlawns Medical Center has served as the safety net hospital for Polk County by ensuring that high quality healthcare is affordable and accessible to everyone. Broadlawns is governed by a seven-member, nonpartisan board of trustees. Each of the seven trustees are elected to serve six-year terms. The board is comprised of unpaid, elected officials who take a sworn oath to govern in the best interest of the hospital, its patients and its employees.The trustees are charged with the responsibility of fulfilling the hospital’s mission to build a healthy community through the delivery of accessible, cost effective and high-quality patient care, and demonstrating fiscal stewardship to safeguard the long-term sustainability of the organization.

As current trustees for Broadlawns, we take the responsibilities of governance very seriously and our sole motivation is to ensure that our county hospital is positioned to capably attend to the healthcare needs of the community, both now and in the future. We are dedicated public servants who recognize that the health of our community is of paramount importance to the overall stability of Polk County. In 2016, the board adopted a new vision for Broadlawns to be the best public hospital in the United States, and the board and leadership are committed to achieving this distinction.

Broadlawns Medical Center is the public hospital in Polk County. -promoted by Laura Belin

For nearly 100 years, Broadlawns Medical Center has provided a safety net to the most vulnerable populations in Polk County. If we have learned anything from the coronavirus pandemic, it is the reality that the inability of everyone to access affordable and quality healthcare puts the entire community at risk.

Thankfully, with the implementation of the Iowa Care Program in 2005, the Affordable Care Act in 2010, and the expansion of Medicaid in 2014, Broadlawns is positioned to meet our county’s health care needs.