President and Principal
AscentHealth Consulting, LLC
LISTEN • UNDERSTAND • APPLY • DO
Matt Richardson still lives by the advice his uncle gave him when Matt was a teen: Listen to the people who matter to you, truly understand what they are telling you, apply their input if it is constructive, then do what you know is best.
With this outlook, Matt aggregates the best input and combines it with his own public health knowledge base steeped in experience. The results speak for themselves. For example, in 2007, Matt implemented a needed effort: community health needs assessments in his jurisdiction to help guide decision-making for the future. Not only was a CHNA performed, but he worked with stakeholders to agree to a 3-year cycle. Today, the community has a resource to refer to–a public document that can benefit anyone who wants to reference it.
Matt is a highly regarded and visionary public health official with almost two decades of experience managing and navigating a wide range of community health issues. He has an intuitive way of seeing how the intricate parts of a community can fit together for the greater good. He can also quickly identify the gaps.
Matt’s true skill is being able to put a community’s health profile into context. This comes from his years of facilitating community health programs and projects, including community health assessments, program audits, collaborative committees and media coordination. He also has broad experience supervising programs for communicable disease, HIV/STD clinic, TB clinic, refugee screenings, immunizations, public health preparedness and administration.
He holds a Doctorate in Public Health with an emphasis on Health Management and Policy from the University of North Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health. He is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Matt is a published researcher and adjunct faculty member at the Texas Tech University School of Medicine Department of Internal Medicine. He serves on the DrPH/MPH Advisory Council of the University of North Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health.
An engaging and quick-witted presenter, Matt has provided legislative testimony on several occasions and regularly extends his expertise by speaking to groups interested in improving the health of their communities.