Foundation support
Dal Baker Memorial Trust
Northwest Health Foundation (see article below)
Oregon Community Foundation (see article below)
PacificSource Charitable Foundation
Providence Mother Joseph Fund
Regence Foundation
United Way of Columbia Willamette
The Oregon Community Foundation supports Project Access NOW
“We see Project Access NOW gaining momentum in its mission to help uninsured Oregonians secure timely health care.”
—Jeff Anderson, Senior Program Officer, Oregon Community Foundation
We are honored to accept $30,000 from the Evelyn L. Jones and the Martha Cake Funds of the Oregon Community Foundation to support our efforts to coordinate a network of volunteer physicians and other health care providers.“We see Project Access NOW gaining momentum in its mission to help uninsured Oregonians secure timely health care,” said Jeff Anderson, Senior Program Officer with the Oregon Community Foundation. “This effort is part of a significant movement across Oregon’s medical community to get something concrete done about the crisis in health care access and costs, regardless of any future policy solutions. OCF congratulates the project’s leadership and the health professionals who have stepped up to collaborate in offering care, and we’re pleased to be a partner.”
The mission of the Oregon Community Foundation is to improve life in Oregon and promote effective philanthropy. Project Access NOW has been invited to request funding again next year and we look forward to a continued relationship with Oregon Community Foundation!
(September 17, 2008)
Northwest Health Foundation helps improve access to care
“The Project Access NOW model is innovative and cost-effective, and helps patients address barriers to care that exist in the current health care system.”
—Chris DeMars, Program Officer, Northwest Health Foundation
The Northwest Health Foundation has partnered with Project Access NOW to improve health care access to the qualified uninsured in the region with a coordinated network of volunteer physicians and other health care providers. The $75,000 grant from the Foundation’s Access to Health Care program will boost the collaborative infrastructure that takes already existing resources and increases their effectiveness and capacity.
Project Access NOW started accepting patients in March 2008. The grant will help provide 2,000 individuals with access to coordinated medically necessary volunteer health care.
Elaborating on the grant award, Chris DeMars, Program Officer with the Northwest Health Foundation, said, “The Project Access NOW model is innovative and cost-effective, and helps patients address barriers to care that exist in the current health care system. The Project Access NOW project partners’ commitment to effective collaboration is impressive. While the project focuses on providing direct services, it also aims to build the relationships necessary to implement health reform in the future.”
“Research shows that lack of coverage decreases access to timely, affordable and appropriate medical care. An uninsured person is almost four times more likely to delay seeking care, often resulting in the need for more acute, more expensive treatment,” says Project Access NOW Executive Director Linda Nilsen-Solares. “We believe that we have tremendous resources already available to us and that we can do more by working together than working independently.”
(August 7, 2008)
Collaboration in action
In improving access to health care in the Portland metropolitan area, Project Access NOW combines regional efficiencies of its infrastructure services with local insight of independent, county-specific partners. Bringing four counties from two states and regional and local stakeholders together in a collaborative effort is not an easy thing to do. Many organizations talk a great deal about collaboration – but to actually pool resources and collective destinies is challenging and courageous. While we have plenty of room to work on our collaborative effort, we are finding tangible ways to create a collaborative culture in our organization. One of those ways is through funding efforts.
As Project Access NOW requests grant funds from partners and private foundations to support the regional infrastructure of this effort, it also seeks funding to support local programs. Local programs use this funding to achieve positive health outcomes for patients by connecting them to care by making referrals to the appropriate volunteers, facilitating the transfer of chart notes and clinical information, providing appointment reminders, scheduling interpreters and addressing other barriers that patients may encounter.
In the current fiscal year, local partners in Clark, Multnomah, and Washington Counties will each receive $45,000 through Project Access NOW from these funders:
- PacificSource Charitable Foundation
- United Way of Columbia Willamette
- Northwest Health Foundation
(August 7, 2008)
