United Health Foundation Awards Additional $1 Million Grant to the Department of Family Medicine

2/15/2008

The United Health Foundation presented a $1 million grant to the Miller School's Department of Family Medicine and Community Health Friday to further fund the foundations "Center of Excellence" at Jefferson Reaves, Sr. Health Center, a Jackson Health System primary care facility in Overtown.

The grant to UM allows the Jefferson Reaves Center, a residency training facility for the Department of Family Medicine, to expand access, improve healthcare quality, and reduce disparities. The award increased the Foundation's total grants to $5 million for the center.

Reed V. Tuckson, M.D., a member of the board of directors of United Health Foundation, made the check presentation to UM President Donna E. Shalala, Miller School Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt, M.D., Marvin O'Quinn, president and CEO of Jackson Health System, Robert Schwartz, M.D., chair of the Department of Family Medicine, and several other stakeholders in the health center that provides diabetes management, mental health counseling and a plethora of other health services to the community.

"One of the things that this gift has done for us is to be able to demonstrate another model," President Shalala said. "Insurance is not the only model of providing world-class healthcare, particularly at the standard we want -- and that is, we want a standard that makes certain that everyone gets quality care, whether or not they have insurance."

Dean Goldschmidt described the Jefferson Reaves Center as an example for the rest of the country.

"With United Health Foundation support we have been able to create a model that is truly unique and incredibly effective and safe for the patients," Dean Goldschmidt said, adding that its "a template for how it can be done and how it can be done extremely well."

Since the initial $1 million grant in 2004 creating the "Center of Excellence," tremendous progress has been made at the health center. Tuckson, who was part of a team that toured the center with staff and physicians, remarked that unlike many clinics, "every service a person needs is available here."

"We have, through what has happened at this clinic, been able to demonstrate to the nation that people who are living in challenged environments such as Overtown can receive quality of care equal to or better than that provided anywhere in the country," Tuckson said before presenting the check. "Poor people, underserved people deserve the same quality of care as anyone else, and what they have done through the combination of the leadership, the talent, the innovation at the University of Miami, and the dedicated team, staff and community leaders at Jefferson Reaves, with the support of the Jackson Health System, has been able to pull that off."

Commitment to quality community healthcare emerged as the theme of the day. "Ninety years serving this community, 50 years in partnership with the University of Miami has created this entity, and through it we are able to deliver to this population the same level of quality care to meet our mission of a single standard of care for everybody. This clinic is the very embodiment of that," O'Quinn said.

"The challenge for us," Dr. Schwartz added, "is to keep pushing the ball forward, how to deliver high quality care to people who need it."

One speaker Friday relayed his appreciation for the comprehensive work done at the health center -- in the neighborhood where he grew up. "I was born in Overtown 55 years ago," said Nelson Adams, M.D., president of both the Dade County Medical Association and the National Medical Association. "I am encouraged by the collaboration we are experiencing here at Jefferson Reaves. When you get the University, the Public Health Trust and the private sector to come together for the betterment of the health of the community, then good things happen."

The Overtown health center is one of four "Centers of Excellence" funded by the United Health Foundation. The other three centers are in New York, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans.