WASHINGTON, Jun 5, 2008 (UPI via COMTEX) -- The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
said it will commit $300 million to improve healthcare in 14 U.S. communities.
The money will be used to lift the overall quality of healthcare, reduce racial
and ethnic disparities and provide models for national reform, the foundation
said Thursday.
"Across America, there are serious gaps between the healthcare that people
should receive and the care they actually receive," Dr. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey,
president and chief executive officer of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,
said in a statement. "Despite having the most expensive healthcare system in the
world, patients are subject to too many mistakes, too much miscommunication and
too much inequity."
A report released by the foundation said researchers at the Dartmouth Institute
for Health Policy and Clinical Practice found black patients lost legs to
amputations at a rate nearly five times that of whites and one in three women
insured by Medicare are not getting recommended mammograms.
The program Aligning Forces for Quality will concentrate its resources in parts
of Ohio, Michigan, California, Missouri, Maine, Tennessee, Minnesota,
Washington, Pennsylvania, New York, Oregon and Wisconsin.
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Copyright 2008 by United Press International