Osteopathic Founders Foundation

Community grants are an important part of the work of the Osteopathic Founders Foundation. Since the sale of our hospital in 1996, the Foundation's trustees have focused on utilizing our resources in a manner consistent with the founder'Founders's original intent. Grants are awarded to community organizations who share in our mission of providing care to the underserved and in the prevention and treatment of disease. With the significant health disparities existing within Oklahoma communities, particular emphasis is given to the most basic needs of food, safety and shelter. Oklahoma's poor ratings for the health of our citizens demand that many of our resources be directed to the support of basic nutrition services to improve the health status of those struggling with food vulnerability. Multiple grants of $5,000 each were provided to food distribution charities throughout the greater tulsa area. A particularly vulnerable group, homebound elderly and disabled tulsans, were provided 1,529 meals by the meals on wheels organization with one of our grants. Recognizing that people living with hiv/aids require special nutrition assistance, our grant to tulsa cares was renewed to support the specialty food pantry. Encouraging early testing for citizens at risk of hiv/hepatitis was supported by our grant to tulsa cares to provide snack bags to those presenting to their facility for testing. We partnered with the student national medical association by purchasing the food that their medical student members used to create snack bags for the iron gate food ministry in tulsa. In addition to food, our $5,000 grant to john 3:16 provided over 1200 meals and overnight shelters for tulsa's unhoused citizens. We addressed the growing problem of university students without adequate food resources with our inaugural grant to the cowboy pantry in stillwater. The osu center for health sciences received grant of $50,000 to support the simulation center which provides medical students with early clinical experience as an adjunct to their training. The Foundation is very proud of these and other investments that we continue to make in the tulsa and northeast Oklahoma communities.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women of most racial and ethnic groups in the united states. In the us, someone will suffer a heart attack every 40 seconds. Annually, more than 805,000 people in this county have a heart attack with more than 600,000 of those being a first heart attack. There are around 60,000 cases of cardiac arrest in the us every year but fewer than 1 in 10 patients survive an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. Immediate initiation of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (cpr) can at least double survival of such an event and defibrillation within 3 - 5 minutes of collapse can produce more improved survival rates. Cardiac arrests that occur outside the hospital are significantly more deadly than in-hospital cardiac arrests. A public health issue, in addition to our support of the american heart association, the Foundation has chosen to address the need for continued training of health professionals by establishing an emergency cardiovascular care training site accredited by the aha. Training in advanced cardiovascular life support, pediatric advanced life support and basic life support for healthcare providers is offered for physicians and other healthcare professionals. We also place an emphasis on providing training in the basic skills of cardiopulmonary resuscitation to the lay community in hopes of improving survival rates of out-of-hospital cardiac events through our friends and family program.

As stated in the mission statement, support of Osteopathic medical education is central to the Foundation's investments. At the pre-doctoral level, two scholarships are awarded to Osteopathic medical students based on academic achievement, professional ambassadorship, and community engagement. Other scholarships are granted which recognize leadership ability as well as medical research accomplishments. All of these awards assist students with the cost of tuition, fees, and books. Grants were also made to the osu Foundation, the Oklahoma educational Foundation for Osteopathic medicine, the student Osteopathic medical association Foundation, and the american Osteopathic Foundation to support their medical student scholarship programs. For those young physicians in post-graduate training, the Foundation offers two programs. Each resident and fellow training at osu medical center is eligible to receive one textbook during each year of their training which is to be used in the didactic activities of their program. Stipends which support the costs associated with required conferences, courses, and out rotations are granted on a competitive basis to Osteopathic residents and fellows enrolled in an acgme accredited postgraduate training program with Osteopathic recognition who are participating in a component of scholarly activity during their travel. Additionally, the Osteopathic Founders Foundation partners with the Oklahoma educational Foundation for Osteopathic medicine to support the awards in their student/resident poster competition each year and is the sponsor of the awards for the graduate medicial education patient safety and quality improvement symposium in Oklahoma. Much of our work is involved in the creation and presentation of continuing medical education for physicians. The cme mission of the Osteopathic Founders Foundation is to continually improve patient care by providing timely, relevant, evidence-based clinical knowledge to Osteopathic physicians and other healthcare providers. In 2009 the Foundation received its initial accreditation from the american Osteopathic association as a category 1-a provider. Since then, we have established relationships with community partners allowing us to provide access to our programs to all Osteopathic physicians, pharmacists, nurses, counselors, and other health care professionals. During 2022, professional development programs were offered in a variety of specialties including psychiatry, addiction medicine, pediatrics, emergency medicine, internal medicine, oncology, neurology, and a wide range of topics in primary care. The challenges of continuing educational opportunities during the pandemic led to the creation of the ecme monthly medicine program which has expanded our reach to physicians across the united states. The Foundation continues to offer programs addressing Oklahoma's opioid crisis by presenting, with our partners, multiple sessions, both in-person and virtually which allow both do's and md's to meet the statutory requirement of education on the prescribing of controlled dangerous substances. The Foundation continues to meet its mandate of serving the continuum of medical education from medical school through medical practice.