HEALTH

The DSF Charitable Foundation has made commitments in biomedical research and education, clinical care, and public health.

Prominent among the Foundation's commitments in health are grants for research on Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and other devastating neurodegenerative conditions. While much research has approached individual neurodegenerative diseases in isolation from one another, a growing body of evidence has identified significant commonalities among them. Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh conceived of an institute that would advance the study and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases by fostering collaboration between researchers and clinicians across the full range of such conditions. The Foundation has committed over $5.6 million to support the realization of this vision in the form of the Pittsburgh Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases (PIND). This is by far the Foundation's largest commitment in any of its program areas. PIND now occupies a floor of the University of Pittsburgh's Biomedical Science Tower 3 (BST 3), which houses 300,000 square feet of laboratory space for a number of cutting-edge disciplines in the health sciences. The design of laboratory space in this building has been optimized to facilitate interaction among researchers. As BST 3 is devoted exclusively to research, PIND's coverage will extend beyond the new building to encompass related clinical activities at Pittsburgh's Oakland medical complex.

As part of its efforts to help create or promote health-related centers of excellence in Pittsburgh, the Foundation has awarded grants to advance education in disciplines critically important to the future of biomedicine. Among such grants is a commitment of $1 million to help Carnegie Mellon University scale up its biomedical engineering program into a full-fledged department. Opening its doors in 2002, this was the first new engineering department to be launched at the University in 25 years. Building on Carnegie Mellon's history of strength in cross-disciplinary work, the department integrates biological sciences and clinical research with computer science and engineering. Biomedical engineering brings these disciplines to bear on the design of devices for the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of medical conditions.

The Foundation has also pledged $470,000 to Carnegie Mellon to support the creation of a Ph.D. program in computational biology, augmenting the existing undergraduate and masters programs in this field. Computational biology integrates biological sciences, mathematics, and computer science to solve biological problems. The growth of computing power and of the need to analyze vast quantities of biological data (e.g., from DNA sequencing) has driven development of this field. Advances in biomedicine will increasingly be products of computational biology. The Ph.D. program in computational biology is a collaborative effort between Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh.

In clinical care, the Foundation has committed $500,000 to the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative (PRHI), which was launched in 1997 under the auspices of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation of Pittsburgh. PRHI’s ambitious mission is to help create a healthcare system that delivers the right care to the right person at the right time, every time, efficiently, and without error. PRHI is a unique community resource, providing clinicians with training and tools to dramatically improve healthcare quality through reductions in medical errors, use of evidence-based practices, and elimination of waste. PRHI helps clinical partners to improve outcomes using its Perfecting Patient Care™ (PPC) principles, an innovative quality-engineering approach adapted for healthcare from the Toyota Production System. Concerned and creative healthcare professionals have put PPC principles to work curbing infections, bringing best practices to cardiac care, reducing pathology errors and implementing new protocols to care for chronic illnesses. A novel application at a local nursing home even shows promise of creating a model for improving long-term care. PRHI’s goal is to develop replicable models for transforming clinical practice and for evaluating the financial impact of safer, better healthcare. PRHI remains southwestern Pennsylvania’s sole “neutral convener” of healthcare stakeholders, including providers, insurers, purchasers, and patients. It facilitates the generation of data and exchange of information necessary for benchmarking and clinical improvement.

As its first grant in community-based health promotion and in the field of public health more generally, the Foundation has committed $200,000 to help launch the Healthy Black Family Project (HBFP), an initiative of the Center for Minority Health of the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health. The HBFP is intended to address an epidemic of preventable disease and premature death in Pittsburgh's African-American communities, which experience a disproportionate burden of health problems. Rates for cardiovascular disease, cancer, infant mortality, and other measures of morbidity and mortality for blacks in Allegheny County far exceed the corresponding rates for whites. These local disparities are representative of a larger national problem. The HBFP is a collaborative effort between the Center for Minority Health and a group of community-partner organizations to implement simple interventions for preventing hypertension and type 2 (adult-onset) diabetes in predominantly black neighborhoods. The interventions focus on physical activity, nutrition, smoking cessation, and stress reduction. A critical component of the HBFP is the Lay Health Advocate Program, which enables community members -- including barbers, beauticians, and church members -- to be trained as "messengers" of health information and "coaches" for health promotion.