Julie Eckstein
Vice President
With over 25 years experience in various areas of health and healthcare, Julie Eckstein leads CHT’s Missouri Project, heading up the Missouri office of the Center for Health Transformation which was founded by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. She currently works with both the legislative and executive branches on state policy initiatives, has workgroups addressing the uninsured, health disparities and obesity/diabetes and started the MO Health Policy Forum among several other projects.
Prior to joining the Center, Ms. Eckstein served under Governor Matt Blunt as Director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. In this Cabinet-level position, Ms. Eckstein engaged both department employees and outside partners in developing a visionary plan to better focus the department’s resources and ensure that the state health department modeled healthy behaviors and policies for the state.
In January of 2006 Ms. Eckstein was named by Governor Blunt to chair his newly formed Missouri Healthcare Information Technology Task Force, Ms. Eckstein also served on the Medicaid Reform Commission in Missouri and was a key member of a subgroup that worked to develop a complete redesign of Missouri’s Medicaid program.
Before being named as the Director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, Ms. Eckstein served as Executive Director of Healthy Communities St. Charles County. Prior to that, she had served in a voluntary capacity as Chair and Director of various committees and activities. Under her leadership, Healthy Communities St. Charles County focused on assessing health needs and identifying health gaps in the community, building coalitions across all sectors of the community to address community health needs, evaluating the success of the organization’s activities and advocating for policy change.
In the 1990s, Ms. Eckstein served as Director of Corporate Wellness Programs for SSM Health Care as well as Director of Community Programs at SSM St. Joseph Health Center and St. Joseph Hospital West, where her projects included developing employee wellness programs, creating business plans for new products and services, managing marketing efforts, overseeing corporate health fairs and other services for public and private sector clients; and fiscal and human resource management in her department.
Ms. Eckstein has clinical experience in Psychiatry, Physical Rehabilitation and Brain Injury Rehabilitation, Burn Trauma, Pediatrics, Chemical Dependency, Skilled Nursing, and Long Term Care/Geriatrics, working in these fields at SSM Rehabilitation Institute, St. Joseph Health Center/St. Joseph Hospital West, St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, DePaul Health Center and several long term care facilities all in St. Louis.
In 2000 Ms. Eckstein started her own business, CommunityCalendars.net, LLC, which provides online information about community events in the St. Louis region and beyond including StCharlesCountyCalendar.com serving our local community. She also has experience in economic development and marketing, serving as the county’s first Director of Business Recruitment at St. Charles County Government and Economic Development Center and as Director of Marketing for Keystone Partnership.
Ms. Eckstein has a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis. She has been a guest lecturer at several St. Louis area universities, has spoken locally and nationally on various health topics including HIT and has been a board member and consultant for many chambers, nonprofit boards and organizations and healthcare corporations. She resides in St. Peters with her husband, Mark, and their three children.
