WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., May 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Quantum Foundation has announced its second major grant toward funding of the Palm Beach County Community Health Alliance's (PBCCHA) innovative electronic health information exchange, called All-Care. All-Care is a model program that is being implemented in collaboration with county hospitals, clinics, and physicians to create shared electronic health records for uninsured and insured patients throughout the county. When fully implemented, experts anticipate that it will save significant dollars, to improve continuity of care for patients, and to reduce medical errors and waste in health care settings.

Quantum's $300,000 grant will add thousands of additional patients to a system that already houses records for over 60,000 patients, or over one quarter of the 230,000 uninsured people in Palm Beach County. It augments a $550,000 grant Quantum provided in 2005, bringing the Foundation's total commitment to the initiative to $850,000. "This will be one of the largest single grants we make this year, in recognition of the significant progress the Alliance is making in advancing our vision of the establishment of a virtual system of health care in the county reality. Ultimately, these efforts will pay dividends for providers and for us all. When care is delivered more efficiently and more effectively, everyone benefits," said Quantum's President Paul Gionfriddo.

Along with other foundations in Florida and around the country, Quantum is playing a leadership role in advancing the development of electronic health information exchanges and has helped focus the attention of both the State and the nation on the PBCCHA effort. As a result, in the past two years PBCCHA has been successful in attracting over $500,000 in matching funding from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) to establish the system. It has become the most fully evolved regional system in Florida. In a significant move earlier this year, AHCA provided a full year's inpatient, outpatient, and emergency department data for every county hospital, the first time AHCA has done this for a regional health information exchange. Other local health and mental health entities are also in the planning stages to include patient data in the system.

The local provider effort is being spearheaded by the Health Care District, which was the first agency to put data into All-Care (from Glades General Hospital), and the Health Department, which recently completed an agreement with PBCCHA and the Health Care District to allow data for all of its clinics to be added to the system. In addition, Caridad Clinic, the FAUWellnessCenters, the Carelink Clinic, and the PBC Medical Society's Project Access Program have already begun to put data into the system.

The goal of the program when fully implemented in early 2008 is to allow the development of a virtual system of care in the county, allowing for the coordination of health care delivery far beyond what has been possible in the past.

Quantum concentrates its grant making in several areas: to assure that all Palm Beach County residents have access to quality health care at reasonable costs; to improve the quality of care and provide support for people with chronic health conditions; and to promote healthy communities and life styles through educational programming. Since inception the foundations with assets of $170 million has distributed over $61.6 million for health, education and community betterment programs.

CONTACT: Trudy McConnell, V.P. Community Relations of the Quantum
Foundation, +1-561-832-7497 ext 112, trudym@quantumfnd.org

Web site: http://www.quantumfnd.org/