As Kadlec Foundation’s board president steps into his new role this month, he’s hoping to educate the community about its greatest health challenges.

Chief among them is breast cancer, said David Lippes.

Lippes, 49, said the foundation will be focused this year on raising $1 million to improve breast health in the Tri-Cities. It has already raised $425,000 toward that goal.

The nonprofit foundation wants to help expand the capacity of Kadlec’s mammography services with new equipment, funding the Mammogram Assistance Program and other patient support services.

Lippes said he also wants “to help express to the community what the Kadlec Foundation is and does. I think people kind of get it — they raise money for the hospital. But that’s the least important thing we do,” he said.

Lippes went on to explain that helping people understand the health needs of the community is key.

“And then connecting those needs with donors to help bridge the gap. That’s the thing — a bunch of people trying to build a stronger, healthier community and I don’t think that’s really well understood.”

“That’s where we need to come together and try to help,” said Lippes, who has served as the foundation’s vice chairman for a year and on Kadlec’s board of trustees for eight years. He is the founder and former CEO of wheelchair maker TiLite in Pasco.

Lippes said he’s learned “quite a bit about breast cancer as a result” of the foundation’s focused effort to raise money for services and equipment.

About one in eight U.S. women, or 12.4 percent, will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime.

Last year, an estimated 246,660 new cases of invasive breast cancer were projected to be diagnosed, a number nearly equal to the population of the Tri-Cities metro area. Breast cancer has a higher death rate than almost any other type of cancer, with about 40,450 women expected to die from the disease this year, according to information from the foundation.

And that’s why breast health is a critical issue for the community, Lippes said.

Kadlec’s Mammogram Assistance Program provides mammograms at no cost to women in financial need. The program served 188 women in 2015, and the need is growing, according to information from the foundation, which hopes to raise $400,000 to support the program.

“Our 2017 goal is to raise money to enable women who wouldn’t otherwise wouldn’t get care, to get care,” Lippes said. “(The program is) designed primarily to build a fund of dollars so that women who are underserved and who don’t have mobility to get mammograms routinely can get them.”

The foundation also wants to raise $450,000 to buy equipment.

Kadlec currently has two 3-D mammogram machines and sees an average of 72 patients a day. “Another machine would allow us to schedule more women in need of mammography services and shorten the timeline for return appointments when a patient requires a second visit,” according to information from the foundation.

“Our equipment is so busy…just enabling more women to access our system would solve the problem,” Lippes said.

The money raised also would buy a mammography positioning chair that could move patients into optimal positions for 3-D breast biopsies. The chair Kadlec currently has is not adjustable.

The foundation also is keying in on support services with a goal of raising $150,000 to provide patients and families with a single point of contact in mammography services.

This patient navigator would guide patients by coordinating appointments with providers, sharing biopsy results, answering patient questions and managing communications about care plans.

The group also wants money raised to go toward offering more community outreach classes and small group sessions to discuss topics, ranging from the difference between 2-D and 3-D mammograms, how to conduct breast self-exams to when to schedule a mammogram.

Lippes said the foundation has solid data on the mammography and breast health needs in the Tri-City area but the community “really needs to investigate what is the health of our community and identify where is it healthy and not healthy. We have to investigate these things,” he said.

He said Kadlec Foundation’s goal is to continue to identify the area’s health needs and then to connect those needs to donors.

The foundation’s new board members include Patrick Galloway, attorney, Advance Legal Services; Nick Gonzales, branch manager, Bouten Construction; Dennis Janikowski, team leader, Numerica Credit Union; and  Jeffery Lewis, president and founder, Epic Trust Advisors.