Mayo Clinic's philanthropy campaign raises $1.35 billion

Minnesota's Mayo Clinic on Tuesday reported collecting $1.35-billion in its first sustained philanthropy campaign for operating costs. The famed medical center started the campaign in 2005 with a goal of raising $1.25-billion in seven years. While Mayo had previously sought donations from benefactors and former patients for new buildings, the current campaign was its first aimed at raising money for care, research, and education programs.

Full text article by Chen May Yee is available via Star Tribune, 1/26/10.

FIU Receives Largest Gift in University History

Long-time university benefactor Dr. Herbert Wertheim recently gave a $20 million gift to the Florida International University College of Medicine, the largest cash donation in university history. The gift is eligible for the State of Florida’s Major Gifts Challenge Grant Program, making its total impact $40 million.

Full-text press release is available via FIU.edu, 6.12.09.

In Tough Economic Times, Medical Centers Take a Hit

An AAMC survey of chief financial officers (CFOs) found that teaching hospitals had a 25 percent loss in operating margins (a measure of operational efficiency) from the third quarter of 2007 to the third quarter of 2008. An American Hospital Association survey analysis of more than 550 hospitals found that their 2008 third-quarter investments had a combined loss of $832 million, down from a $396 million gain a year earlier. During this quarter, the same hospitals had a 1.6 percent average loss, compared with a mean 6.1 percent profit the year before.

"There is a greater need for philanthropy now," said Miami-based Mount Sinai Medical Center President and CEO Steven Sonenreich, M.B.A. "We are placing more of a focus on the growing number of 80-somethings, people who are not as affected by the economy and are in a position to make a major contribution."

Full-text article by Elissa Fuchs is available via the AAMC Reporter, 3.19.09.

$125 Million Is Pledged to Big Medical Center

Charles F. Feeney, the iconoclastic philanthropist known as “the billionaire who wasn’t,” is giving $125 million to the University of California San Francisco Medical Center to support development of a complex to provide medical services to children, women and cancer patients on its new downtown campus. The gift is the first of $100 million or more since last fall, according to the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Full-text article by Stephanie Strom is available via The New York Times, 3.12.09.

Texas Children's Has 'Integral Role' in Rice-Baylor Hospitals Deal

Texas Children's Hospital has joined the effort to bring about a merger of Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine, the city's elite academic institutions.

Full-text article by Todd Ackerman is available via the Houston Chronicle, 12.19.08.

Teaching Hospitals Warily Await Details of Obama's Health-Care Plan

Many hospital executives support the concept of universal health care but worry that lawmakers might raid other funds that teaching hospitals receive for treating the uninsured to pay for broader coverage.

Full-text article by Kelly Ware is available via the Chronicle of Higher Education, 12.8.08. [Subscription required.]

NYU Medical Center Gets 2 Gifts Totaling $260-Million

The economic slowdown isn't stalling plans to improve New York University's medical center, which will undergo a facelift and a major expansion thanks to two megagifts totaling $260-million that were announced last week.

Full-text article by Kathryn Masterson is available via the Chronicle of Higher Education, 11.13.08. [Subscription required.]

Google and Nonprofit Hospital Seek New Approach to Online Health

Google has formed a pilot program with the nonprofit academic medical center Cleveland Clinic to help patients gain more control over their online medical data, reports The Wall Street Journal.

Under the pilot program, Google officials say that patients in the Cleveland Clinic system will be able to gain access to their medical records at any time through a Google online health profile and can securely share medical information as needed.

Full-text article by Christopher Lawton is available via The Wall Street Journal, 2.21.08.