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Megan Kelley
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Maryland State Medical Society Receives $25,000 Award
from the Quality Health Foundation
to Provide Language Translation Resources to Maryland Physicians

Columbia, Maryland – July 2, 2008 –The Quality Health Foundation, the mission arm of Quality Health Strategies, announced today a grant in the amount of $25,000 to the Center for a Healthy Maryland, an affiliate of MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society.  MedChi serves as Maryland’s foremost advocate and resource for physicians, their patients and the public health. 

The Center’s grant will be used to provide translation resources to physicians to enable them to address the language needs of their patient population.  MedChi will use the funds to assess the linguistic needs of the 12.6 percent of the patient population in Maryland that speaks a language other than English.  The funds will also identify existing interpreter resources and modes of accessing services, build web-based database of linguistic resources, market linguistic resources and evaluate usage and utility of these resources.

“The Center for a Healthy Maryland is honored to receive this grant from the Quality Health Foundation,” states Meena R. Abraham, Dr. P.H., Executive Director, MedChi.  “This grant will allow us to continue our promotion of culturally and linguistically appropriate care.”

The Quality Health Foundation was formed in May 2003 out of funds from Quality Health Strategies, an Easton-based not-for-profit quality improvement organization with more than 30 years experience in conducting and evaluating health care quality improvement initiatives.  The mission of the Quality Health Foundation is to provide charitable organizations that wish to undertake improvement projects with funding based on the project’s potential to impact access to and quality of healthcare to individuals and communities.

“The Quality Health Foundation is happy to be partnering with the Center for a Healthy Maryland to directly provide translation resources to physicians to enable them to address the language needs of their patient population,” said Sheldon Goldgeier, MD, Chairman of the Quality Health Foundation Board of Directors.

Media Note: High resolution images of the award recipients are available up request.

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About Quality Health Foundation
The Quality Health Foundation is the mission arm of the Quality Health Strategies, a national, not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving healthcare quality in 26 states.  Formed in May 2003, the mission of the Quality Health Foundation is to improve the health of individuals and communities.  To achieve this goal, we provide modest charitable grants to organizations that wish to undertake improvement projects to impact access to and quality of healthcare and human services to individuals and communities.  For more information, please visit the Quality Health Foundation on the web at www.qualityhealthfoundation.org.