Quality Health Foundation Awards
$230,000 in Local Grants
Easton, Maryland, June 1, 2007 - The Quality Health Foundation, the mission arm of Quality Health Strategies, recently announced local grants totaling $230,000.
A total of six awards among nearly 100 applicants have been awarded by the Quality Health Foundation, formed in May 2003 out of funds from the Delmarva Foundation, an Easton-based not-for–profit quality improvement organization with more than 30 years experience in conducting and evaluating health care quality improvement initiatives. The mission of the Quality Health Foundation is to provide charitable grants to organizations that wish to undertake improvement projects with funding based on the project’s potential to impact access to and quality of healthcare to individuals and communities.
The six grantees include:
Access Carroll, Inc. – Westminster, MD
Access Carroll, Inc. will receive $30,000 in grant funding to expand its provision of primary health care services to the uninsured population of Carroll County. Funding will be used for a full-time medical assistant nursing position which will enable them to continue to provide consistent primary care services and to supplement the salary of a medical director/physician to provide direct medical services and review medical policies and procedures.
Allegany Health Right, Inc. – Cumberland, MD
The $45,000 grant will fund the salary of the Executive Director to enable Allegany Health right to continue its work of providing access to health care for uninsured adults in Allegany County, Maryland. The Executive Director will oversee all operations and ensure the delivery of needed health care services by coordinating a network of volunteer physicians, dentists, and oral surgeons. Approximately 500 individuals are expected to receive services through the program in the course of a year.
Public Health Foundation – Washington, DC
With the goal of improving community health by developing a training module to transfer quality improvement skills and practices to the public health workforce, the $50,000 grant will be used to develop a flagship Quality Improvement (QI) e-learning module for public health organization with and advisory committee drawn from the Public Health Foundation. The project will benefit and improve the health of five million Marylanders, by building much needed QI skills in Maryland’s public health workforce and sparking QI projects statewide.
Smith Farm Center for Healing and the Arts – Washington, DC
With their $25,000 in grant funds, Smith Farm Center for Health and the Arts will establish health navigators for African immigrant and African-American women living in the Greater Southeast area of Washington, DC. Their goal is to offer support and services to improve women’s health and accessibility to health care for the prevention and treatment of breast cancer. Grant funds will enable Smith Farm Center to hire and train two part-time community navigators and provide program services to the target population.
Somerset County Health Department – Westover, MD
On behalf of the Tri-County Diabetes Alliance, whose goals include identifying individuals at risk of developing diabetes in the Tri-County region of Wicomico, Worchester, and Somerset counties, the Somerset County Health Department, will use their $50,000 in grant funds to develop a comprehensive diabetes education program that is a promising “best practice” by the National Association of County and City Health Officials. The main objective of this project is to provide primary prevention education for Diabetes.
Washington County Health Department - Hagerstown, MD
The $30,000 grant to the Washington County Health Department will be used for a multi-media social marketing campaign to address the high incidence of teen births in the county. The purpose is to educate community members about the problem to gather additional support and awareness of interventions to decrease risky behavior among teens. The Family Planning Clinics will serve 800 teens and the media outlets and educational resources will reach 18,000 teens and 30,000 adults. Funds will be used in advertising, on contractual services-medical, on educational supplies and printing.
"The Quality Health Foundation exists to improve health and health processes at the community level. We are delighted to make grants to these outstanding organizations that are already doing good with the expectation that they will be able to multiply their good works," said Roger C. Merrill, MD, Chairman of the Quality Health Foundation Board of Directors.
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About Delmarva Foundation
Delmarva Foundation is a national, not-for-profit organization committed to improving the quality, safety, and equitability of healthcare. Since 1973, Delmarva has assisted with quality assessment and improvement in a variety of healthcare settings including hospitals, physician offices, nursing homes, home health agencies and managed care plans. In over 20 states, Delmarva provides an essential link between government agencies, healthcare providers and consumers to ensure the highest quality of care. Delmarva conducts work ranging from quality improvement, quality assurance, utilization review, and external quality review. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Easton, Maryland with other offices in Baltimore, Maryland; Washington, DC; Columbia, South Carolina; Tampa, Florida; and Tallahassee, Florida. For more information, please visit Delmarva Foundation on the web at www.delmarvafoundation.org.
