What’s the news: The AMA Foundation has partnered with Project N95 to donate more than 96,000 units of quality-certified personal protective equipment (PPE) to support the foundation’s Community Health Program partner organizations. The foundation donated the funds and Project N95 provided the PPE to the sites.
The donations included N95 respirators, ASTM-rated surgical masks, nitrile gloves, and isolation gowns. They follow an initial donation of 200,000 ASTM-rated surgical masks that Project N95 and the AMA collaborated to distribute in April to six organizations in Chicago andNew Mexico.
Why it’s important: "The AMA’s collaboration with Project N95 began as a way to secure PPE for members during the first way of the COVID-19 pandemic and evolved to also provide critical supplies for communities they serve," said AMA Foundation Executive Director Barkley Payne. "Given the dramatic impact COVID-19 has had and continues to have on historically marginalized and minoritized communities, the Foundation was honored to match this support."
This donation is the latest in the evolution of the AMA-Project N95 collaboration, which has now spanned three member campaigns and two rounds of donations distributed to affiliated community health organizations, resulting in a combined total of over 675,000 units of PPE in the hands of physicians, health professionals and communities in need over the past year of the pandemic.
The recipient organizations from AMA Foundation’s Community Health Program include:
- Bethel Hamliri—Bronx, New York.
- Alliance Medical Ministry—Raleigh, North Carolina.
- Diabetes Association of Atlanta.
- Good News Clinics—Gainesville, Georgia.
- Health Protection and Education Service—University City, Missouri.
- Iowa City Free Medical Clinic.
- La Maestra—San Diego.
- North East Medical Services—San Francisco.
- Open Arms Health Clinic—Arlington, Texas.
- Summit Medical Group Foundation—New Providence, New Jersey.
The Community Health Program is designed to further increase health equity and improve health outcomes by creating a cohort of community-based organizations throughout the country to prevent and manage Type 2 diabetes and hypertension for vulnerable and underserved populations.
The program provides technical assistance webinars and other educational resources, along with financial support up to $50,000 per year for each cohort participant, renewable for up to three years.
Find out about the 180,000 masks given to Chicago-area nonprofits in April by the AMA and Project N95.
Learn more: Project N95 is the national clearinghouse for critical PPE and COVID-19 tests. As a leading rapid-response nonprofit organization created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Project N95 helps health care workers source quality-certified PPE from a trusted source.
The AMA has collaborated three times with Project N95 to reserve quality-certified PPE exclusively for AMA members to purchase with no minimum. The last offer ended in April.
Find out the seven signs those new N95s at your physician practice might be fake.
