John Muir Health Foundation Receives Major Gift From Hedco Foundation

Capital Campaign Raises over $550,000 for Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery

Walnut Creek, Calif. (June 2, 2009) - John Muir Health Foundation, the charitable fundraising organization for all John Muir Health programs and services, has received a pledge of more than $550,000 from the HEDCO Foundation, Danville, Calif. The gift will help fund state-of-the-art neonatal intensive care equipment for highest acuity patients in the Joseph M. Long Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery at The Thomas J. and Muriel T. Long Patient Care tower in Walnut Creek, scheduled to open in early 2011. "The Capital Campaign is grateful for the HEDCO Foundation's generous gift that will help enhance John Muir Health's high-quality care for our youngest patients," said Milt Smith, president of the John Muir Health Foundation. "We are thrilled with such great progress in the Campaign and hope more foundations, businesses and individuals will get involved in the fundraising effort for John Muir Health's building expansion projects." Founded in Oakland in 1972, HEDCO is a private foundation funded by numerous sources, including corporations and individuals. The HEDCO Foundation supports a variety of philanthropic projects ranging from gifts to purchase equipment for scientific and medical research to grants supporting educational institutions and social welfare organizations.

The gift will provide additional funding to purchase five OmniBeds—also called Giraffe beds, 13 physiological monitors, 13 headwalls, and a 13-bed monitor for the nurses' station. The new Joseph M. Long Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery will be the only facility in Northern California that has all private rooms. Each room will be large enough to accommodate parents and will provide a complete micro-environment that controls light, sound, touch, humidity, and oxygen.

The John Muir Health Foundation's Capital Campaign is seeking to raise $56 million by 2011 for the approximately $800 million building expansion projects at John Muir Health's Concord and Walnut Creek campuses, currently in progress.

To receive information about how to support the Capital Campaign, call 925-947-4449 or e-mail: foundation@johnmuirhealth.com

About John Muir Health Foundation

John Muir Health Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established in 1979 to secure philanthropic support for the not-for-profit John Muir Health organization, which serves communities in Contra Costa County, and parts of Solano County and Marin County.

Locally governed John Muir Health is a leader in high quality patient care that continues to help make possible a number of "firsts" in the region, including the first oncology center in Northern California to offer breakthrough technology in the diagnosis of lung and esophageal cancer, the first Novalis stereotactic radio surgery system in Northern California, the first Level III neonatal intensive care nursery in Contra Costa County, and the first and only designated Trauma Center for Contra Costa County.

(Posted June 2, 2009)