The United Hospital Fund relies on the generosity of its supporters to maintain its record of leadership and accomplishment. With your support, we can continue to shape positive change in health care for the people of New York.
Here's how the Fund is putting donors' contributions to good use:
Expanding Health Insurance Coverage
One in four New Yorkers is uninsured. Lack of health insurance compromises the health of 1.6 million New Yorkers, nearly 75 percent of them in working families that can't afford the high cost of premiums. As a result, they put off, or do without, needed medical care. And when they finally do get care, they tend to be sicker and to require more costly and complex treatments.
Turning this health insurance crisis around is high on the Fund's list of priorities. Read more.
Strengthening the Organization and Delivery of Health Care Services
Mismatched resources and needs limit access to care. Well staffed and adequately funded health care centers are in short supply in low-income communities, where they're needed most. And with New Yorkers speaking more than 100 different languages, diagnoses and instructions for healthier lifestyles often reach uncomprehending ears.
The United Hospital Fund is working hard to help strengthen and redesign community-based services to provide patient- and family-centered care. Read more.
Improving Quality of Care
Deficiencies in quality cause unnecessary suffering and cost billions of dollars. Millions of New Yorkers benefit from the city's world-class health care and its extraordinary doctors and nurses. Yet overtreatment, undertreatment, or simple human error can still place patients at risk, regardless of their income, age, gender, or race.
The United Hospital Fund works with doctors and nurses to strengthen safeguards and improve quality of care through innovative approaches to information-sharing and problem-solving. Read more.
Advancing Aging and Chronic Care Services The number of senior citizens in New York will increase by 40 percent in the next 25 years. Existing health care and social services are often reactive and fragmented and don't meet the needs of elderly New Yorkers or those suffering from chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes. Coordinated services offered at home or in the community make a difference. Older citizens can remain independent, and families caring for seriously ill loved ones at home can receive the assistance they need.
The United Hospital Fund is working to create and integrate health care and social services to ensure more effective and responsive care. Read more.
Promoting Health Care Voluntarism The United Hospital Fund was founded by volunteers in 1879 and continues its proud tradition of promoting health care voluntarism through a number important initiatives. Today it presents educational programs and conferences targeted to hospital volunteers, auxiliary members, and health care professionals working with volunteers; recognizes and promotes the contributions of health care volunteers and volunteer leaders through the city-wide Hospital Auxilian and Volunteer Achievement Awards; and provides grant support to hospitals to stimulate appropriate and effective volunteer responses to better meet patients’ needs.
The United Hospital Fund is proud that it meets all of the Better Business Bureau's Standards for Charity Accountability. Thanks to past generations of donors who generously remembered the United Hospital Fund in their wills, the Fund has $87.2 million in unrestricted endowment funds (as of August 1, 2008), which partially support the Fund's annual operating budget of $14.6 million and help ensure the Fund's independent leadership role now and for generations to come. Your donation to the Fund's Annual Campaign for a Healthier New York provides necessary additional support for the Fund's current programs and strategic grantmaking aimed at shaping positive change in New York's health care.
