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Health News and Notes
March 3, 2008
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Cargill is donating $77,500 to the American Heart Association to
help fund Go Red for Women educational seminars for the third
consecutive year. The campaign aims to raise awareness that heart
disease is the number one killer of women, and strives to motivate
women to take charge of their heart health. "We use these seminars
to introduce women to cholesterol-lowering food options," said
Alicia Gordon, Go Red for Women director of the American Heart
Association's midwest affiliate. "Thanks to gifts like Cargill's, we
can make a real difference in women's health, and hopefully save
some lives." |
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The United Health Foundation gave $25,000 to the American
Society of Transplant Surgeons as the first award in its Advancing
Clinical Excellence program that will provide $500,000 in grant
support to medical specialty societies to assist them in fulfilling
their clinical quality improvement missions. The grant will
facilitate the societies' collaboration with the American Board of
Surgery to develop the transplant-specific requirements necessary to
advance the new Maintenance of Certification component of surgical
board certification. The funds will be used to assist in the
development of self-reporting instruments, the use of a
transplant-specific curriculum that highlights best practices and
the use of quality measures specific to transplantation. |
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The Medtronic Foundation's HeartRescue program will give funding
priority to school programs that educate students about sudden
cardiac arrest (SCA) and prepare them to act in an emergency. To
increase the number of bystanders trained in CPR and AED use, the
program will focus U.S. grants on schools, school districts,
government agencies and nonprofit organizations that develop
comprehensive school-based programs that will prepare a new
generation of people to recognize SCA when it happens and take
action when it does. |
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Delta Dental of Minnesota will pilot a first-in-the-nation
demonstration project that will enable dentists in select clinics to
work with patients in Minnesota state health care programs to
conduct simple diabetes screening tests, which may help reduce the
incidence of undiagnosed diabetes. This demonstration project will
not involve commercial dental business or clients. The initiative is
being introduced in collaboration with the Minnesota Department of
Human Services and three health plans: Medica, Blue Cross Blue
Shield of Minnesota and Metropolitan Health Plan. When public
program patients enrolled in these health plans visit the dentist
and display common diabetes symptoms such as periodontal disease and
high blood pressure, the dentist will offer to perform a diabetes
screening; if the screening is positive, the dentist will advise the
patient to follow up with their family physician. |
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Bright Smiles, an oral health prevention initiative for children
and pregnant women by Greater Twin Cities United Way, recently
expanded its program coverage to include Dakota and Hennepin
Counties; grants were previously given to Ramsey County. The 2008
grants total $920,000 and provide early prevention in oral health
through expanded dental care, focusing on services that provide care
to uninsured or underinsured children who are most at risk for poor
oral health and to low-income families, including new immigrants,
refugees and racial or ethnic minorities. The grants will provide
oral health education and care to over 9,000 children from birth to
five years old and 1,000 pregnant women per year. |
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The United Health Foundation has awarded a new $1 million grant
to the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine's Department of
Family Medicine and Community Health. In May 2004 the United Health
Foundation began a multi-year relationship with the department and
the Jefferson Reaves Sr. Health Center, with an initial $1 million
grant to create the Center of Excellence to directly expand access,
improve healthcare quality and reduce disparities. The funding has
allowed the department to "work together with the staff at Jefferson
Reaves to provide the services at the center. This has allowed us to
'think out of the box' to improve health care delivery programs,
access to care and focus on areas of important needs to patients,"
Robert Schwartz, M.D., department professor and chairman. |
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According to an article in the Feb. 21 edition of the Chronicle
of Philanthropy:
Efforts to increase the number of nurses in the United States are
starting to win significant philanthropic support. The new interest, coming
after years of inattention from grant makers, has been sparked by a
serious shortage of nurses in many parts of the country. The problem
is expected to become even more pressing as older Americans become
an increasingly large share of the population.
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