For 25 years, Elodie Dorso has been engulfed in the mission of Evara Health.
Dorso, a Pinellas County-born and bred native, has been leading the organization for the past six years as chief executive officer, building on the blocks laid for her dating back 40 years, by founder, Dr. Johnnie Ruth Clarke.
Ruth Clarke, the first African American woman to earn a doctorate from the University of Florida, was a pioneer in the fight against sickle cell anemia. Her service paved the way for modern medical services, in the under-served African American community of St. Petersburg, during that time.
Forty years later, while under a new name, and leadership in Dorso, the mission remains the same — serving everyone’s health care needs for the betterment of the whole community.
“[Ruth Clarke] believed that children who were not healthy could not learn,” says Dorso.
Originally established as the Johnnie Ruth Clarke Health Center, then Community Health Centers of Pinellas and currently, Evara Health, the Federal Public Health Service received an appropriation from C.W. Bill Young to start its first clinic.
Evara now spans 16 centers in Pinellas County and serves more than 60,000 patients annually. From adult medicine and women’s health to pediatrics, to nutrition and dentistry and behavioral health, it seeks to offer solutions to people weary of a lack of access to care.
“I believe that [Ruth Clarke] has changed the whole trajectory of health care in South St. Petersburg and now, Pinellas County,” Dorso says.
Dorso grew up in Seminole. Her parents divorced when she was very young, but she spent ample time with both during her childhood.
During her teen years, she attended Seminole High School and, as she came to the age of planning college, both of her parents began to experience the brutal effects of illnesses. Her father with non-Hodgkin’s disease and her mother with breast cancer. The prognosis for both was bleak.
“Most of my high school years were dealing with the health journeys and the illness of my parents,” Dorso says. “It taught me a lot. It taught me how to be independent and I think it made me who I am today.”
By the time she was 19 years old, both biological parents were gone.
“My mother was an incredible woman. She was the first female vice president at an investment banking firm. She was quite the role model for me,” Dorso says. “I didn’t realize that as I was growing up but now, as I look back, I was around someone who understood her worth and her confidence.”
Dorso describes her father as being very entrepreneurial and a “big dreamer.”
“He liked to dream big and instilled in my brother and myself to chase after our own dreams,” she says.
Growing up, she never dreamed of being the CEO of a health care organization but, in hindsight, it makes perfect sense. Access to health care can save lives and build better communities, two things she is keenly aware of and passionate about.
Adult Elodie Dorso is a self-described introvert. She is matter of fact, hyper-focused on the Evara mission and has little to no interest in the spotlight. If you want to see her genuinely light up, ask her about Evara and the work it’s doing in the community.
“Even though I’m not the actual caregiver or physician, I can have an impact on families that are going through similar situations that I had to go through,” Dorso explains.
These days, it’s that devotion to making a positive impact that is driving Evara through its current growth phase.
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As the Tampa Bay area grows in popularity, so does the need for health care services. One of Evara’s strengths is its ability to find gaps in the market and provide services to fill those gaps. When needed, it has found community partners for collaboration, Dorso acknowledged there was no need to solve problems that do not need fixing.
“We began adding on services like dental care and specialty services. We were intentional about the partners that we’re partnering with, and we have some exciting partnerships coming up,” she says.
Boley Centers, the St. Petersburg Housing Authority and the Pinellas County Housing Authority are all working with Evara to expand access to care for the homeless and mentally ill people. Some of those partnerships include establishing onsite clinics and other services that go hand in hand with affordable housing because “health care and affordable housing go hand in hand.”
The progress of Evara is also attributed to taking calculated risks.
“Our goal is to make sure that we’re meeting the needs of the community. And so, we do a lot with our community needs assessments both through the hospitals and through the health department and asking, where is there a need? We don’t want to duplicate what’s already out there, but we want to make sure that we’re capitalizing on our strengths and partnering with others on the strengths for them,” Dorso explains.
This leads Evara to its next, great, exciting chapter, the opening of the Evara Institute.
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It’s a common conundrum in varying industries at varying levels, how do we fill the jobs? Where do we find the people with the training we need? Enter the Evara Institute, a newly constructed 20,000-square-foot facility that will provide health care education and training, to fill the jobs that need filling.
“One of the challenges in health care right now, and I think across any industry, is the workforce. As we came out of the pandemic, a lot of our health professionals determined that health care was not where they wanted to have their careers anymore. So how do we make sure that we have enough support staff to make sure that our physicians, and our advanced practice providers, can see our patients?”
About two years ago, Dorso and her team devised a solution to the problem. A place that would curate individuals to fill the roles left vacant in the health care world.
“I decided it was time for us to not rely on others to grow our workforce, that we needed to grow our own workforce.”
The building is still being constructed, but the pipeline of students has already begun. Seventy-six medical assistant apprentices are going through the program out of its current building, in Clearwater, the largest medical assistant apprenticeship program in the state, Dorso shares, with pride.
Dorso says that she expects the institute to train about 950 students, in the next two years.
“We’re partnering with BayCare and Tampa General Hospital, Operation Par and Directions for Living as we’re bringing these students in, placing them with particular employers that meet their needs. They’re not only learning training for us, but they’re also learning on-the-job skills that employers need. When they get their apprenticeship certificate, they’re ready to go.”
The demand has been so high, Evara is already eyeing its second campus, in South St. Petersburg.
Dorso came to Evara through the door of human resources and now leads as CEO, but it’s the human aspect of health care that remains her laser-focused mission.
“As I grew alongside the organization, the mission and the impact of what we do as a community, it just was natural for me. It’s a natural fit for me. This is not a career. It’s a calling,” Dorso says. “I get to see how we’re impacting one patient, their family and the whole community.” ♦