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What Has Your SDCMS Foundation Done For You Lately?

The SDCMS Foundation is advancing several innovative programs and initiatives.

• The Emergency Department Medical Home (EDMH) Project matches uninsured patients in the emergency department with public and private medical coverage and establishes a medical home for them at local community health centers.
• Project Access San Diego (PASD) is a program that connects eligible, low-income, uninsured patients with physicians who provide deeply discounted or pro bono care. For more information call (858) 565-8595.
• Your SDCMS Foundation has also established five medical student scholarships at the UCSD School of Medicine.

Learn More and Contact SDCMS Leadership and Staff

Get to Know the SDCMS Foundation (SDCMSF)
By Carol Young, MD, President, Board of Directors, SDCMSF

Let me introduce you to the San Diego County Medical Society Foundation (SDCMSF). Recently reorganized under the visionary leadership of Jim Hay, MD, the nonprofit SDCMSF has launched a number of initiatives designed to “address unmet San Diego healthcare needs for all patients and physicians through innovation, education and service.”

Our executive director is Kitty Bailey. Our chief medical officer is pediatrician Steve Carson, MD. Our board of directors includes SDCMS member physicians and community leaders devoted to the mission and energized to grow our several initiatives in six top priority areas.

1. Improving Access to Care: SDCMSF's Project Access San Diego (PASD) initiative launched in 2007 to ensure that San Diego County residents have access to the quality healthcare they need regardless of their socioeconomic status. Jim Hay, MD, SDCMSF board of directors immediate past president, will continue his board membership and function as the champion for PASD. SDCMSF's Emergency Department Medical Home Project (EDMH) is poised to find outpatient medical homes for some of the 35,000 San Diego County residents who currently use hospital emergency departments as their preferred site for primary care. The EDMH Project is funded by a grant from Blue Shield and will launch with the cooperation of several hospital emergency departments and several community health centers to demonstrate feasibility, savings, and quality of care. In addition to these two important initiatives, we work with many other organizations and agencies, e.g., Reach Out Project, 2-1-1, Community Health Improvement Partners (CHIP), and the County of San Diego in several cooperative efforts to improve access to care.
2. Physician Service to the Community: SDCMSF, with access to SDCMS' physician database, is connecting our talented retired and practicing physicians to organizations in the community that desperately need their volunteer services. Ellen Beck, MD, is a member of our board and the director of the UCSD Medical Student Run Free Clinic Project in San Diego. Gresham Bayne, MD, is founder and director of the Volunteers in Medicine Clinic in El Cajon. SDCMSF's Retired Physicians Society (RPS) serves both a social and a service function and is represented on SDCMS' board of directors by Glen Kellogg, MD.
3. Providing Practical Consumer Health Education: Beginning with diabetes and obesity, we have launched a program to provide patient education materials translated into all threshold languages in San Diego County and at an elementary grade reading level accessible to all physicians online to print and distribute to their patients. Gifts from Sanofi-Aventis and KOS Pharmaceutical will assist in making these educational materials available online.
4. Improving Medical Technology: The San Diego Medical Information Network Exchange (SD-MINE) initiative plans to increase physician access to critical patient information at the point of care and in real time in order to enhance patient safety throughout the region.
5. Supporting Medical Students: This initiative was the sole function of SDCMSF when it was known as AMPER. Now SDCMSF's mission has expanded along with expansion of medical student support. SDCMSF provides low-interest medical student loans, scholarships, and grants to qualifying San Diego County resident medical students, and SDCMSF educates medical students on public policy and the impact of legislation on their ability to serve patients.
6. Endowing Our Programs and Initiatives: The success of SDCMSF programs and initiatives depends upon funding to secure San Diego County’s healthcare future through education, innovation, and service.

So, while our executive director, Kitty Bailey, our chief medical officer, Steve Carson, MD, and an enthusiastic board of directors continue to pursue grant support for SDCMSF initiatives, I ask for your support. We need dollars, and we need physician volunteers. We are asking for your time, your talent, and your treasure to secure the future success of SDCMSF and its initiatives.

Most of the physician members of SDCMS have become SDCMS Foundation Friends and have paid or pledged $50 annually. Thank you for your contribution! I and every one of my fellow members of SDCMSF's board of directors have committed larger gifts to help secure the success of SDCMSF initiatives. Now I am asking you if you believe in the mission and the good work SDCMSF does in the community, to consider a gift to SDCMSF.

We are asking for physician volunteers. If you believe you can furnish a primary care “medical home” for one patient (Project Access or EDMH Project) or if you can furnish one medical specialty evaluation and management service for free or at a discount (Reach Out Project) please contact me. We are looking for board-certified physicians in virtually all medical and surgical specialties and in all geographic areas of San Diego County — physicians willing to see just one uninsured patient.

Please contact me, Carol Young, MD, if you are interested in learning more about our initiatives or more about how you can participate as one of the many “San Diego Doctors With Heart.”