What has the greatest ability to change your life? The answer is your health.

If tomorrow you are diagnosed with cancer, have a heart attack, are in a car accident – your life changes in an instant. At CoxHealth our focus is on giving you the best care, close to home, with the most skilled professionals in the most innovative settings.

To do that CoxHealth has depended on the support of the CoxHealth Foundation since 1998. That is when the Foundation was formed to support every aspect of health care, while considering all social determinants of health. That means- things like a person’s income, where you live and how available healthcare is in your community.

The CoxHealth Foundation is focused on finding ways to remove barriers to care. For example, the Transportation Fund helps ensure no one’s care is interrupted because they don’t have a ride to their medical appointment. The Foundation generates funds to provide state-of-the-art technology. Our patients deserve the most innovative treatments, so everything you need is right here at CoxHealth, not states or miles away. The CoxHealth Foundation is also focused on prevention and programs that stop accidents or disease before it starts. Most importantly, the Foundation is here for our patients, meeting their needs as identified. Lester Cox said decades ago, “Find a need and help fill it,” and the CoxHealth Foundation strives to meet all needs every day.

The key to the CoxHealth Foundation’s ability to serve is you, our donors. For generations, individuals, corporations, grant funders and grateful patients have donated to make CoxHealth “the best it can be for those who need us.” This is now the vision statement and mission your local hospital Foundation will continue to work for and towards every day. Thank you for your support of CoxHealth and the hundreds of thousands of our friends and family who depend on us for their care each year.

CoxHealth history – Our start in a three story house.

The early 1900’s proved to be a difficult time as people faced a variety of illness with only one place for care. Mrs. Ellen Burge, a local philanthropist saw the need for a second hospital in Springfield. She donated her three-story home and Burge Deaconess Hospital was born on Thanksgiving Day, 1906.
The 30-bed hospital would receive a boost during the heart of the Great Depression when Dr. & Mrs. John Howard Nixon donated to add an additional 40 beds. Near the end of 1948 however, despair had spread and the hospital floundered. The decision to shut down appeared imminent. That’s when the Board of Directors called on local businessman Lester E. Cox. Mr. Cox was asked to guide a recovery plan. He agreed and started with a personal donation, plus gifts from 34 physicians, raising enough money to repair, replenish and restore the hospital’s resources to give it a second chance. The hospital soon after began to flourish under Mr. Cox’s leadership and by the early 1960’s was caring for not only Springfieldians, but people from across the Ozarks. Following Mr. Cox’s death in 1968, the board voted to honor him by changing the name from Burge Deaconess to Lester E Cox Medical Centers. Today CoxHealth continues to bear the name and legacy of a man and family committed to service through healthcare.

CoxHealth Foundation Board of Directors