Donna Kahm works to foster collaboration among community agencies to enhance the health and wellness of residents living in rural southwestern New York. She works with a wide variety of community agencies to develop and administer programs that promote access to health care and continuing medical education and directs numerous initiatives that identify and overcome barriers to quality of care and quality of life.
In 2016 Kahm was responsible for initiating the Cribs for Kids program through her participation in the HFWCNY’s Health Leadership Fellows program to respond to unsafe sleep-related infant deaths. Since the program began the program has distributed 488 cribs and trained 627 parents/caregivers in safe sleep practices. We are happy to report that 0 infants involved in the program succumbed to an unsafe sleep death.
Getting rural EMS providers the training they need to enhance their skills and level of care has always been difficult, but Kahm has strived for this to be a top priority. Her work led to the creation of a Regional Paramedic Program that uses distance learning technology to allow this advanced training in a rural community. Kahm secured funding from the USDA to support the creation of a Distance Learning training network in the region that now has over nine satellite sites.
Donna has served as the President & CEO at Southern Tier Health Care System since 2007. In her role, she is responsible for administering and directing the rural health network, which encompasses Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Chautauqua counties.
