Nov

Signature Healthcare Foundation presents the 2017 Senator Paul Simon Award to Affinia Healthcare.

For immediate release (October 2017)
Contact: Beth Schlueter, Executive Director
Company Name: Signature Healthcare Foundation
Telephone: 618-791-8737
Email: bschlueter@signaturefoundation.org
Website: https://www.signaturefoundation.org

Foundation Board President David Anderson, MD. presents the Senator Simon Award to representatives of Affinia Healthcare

St. Louis, October, 2017. Signature Healthcare Foundation is pleased to announce the presentation of the 2017 Senator Paul Simon Award to Affinia Healthcare. Affinia President & CEO Alan Freeman accepted the award at a special presentation during the 15^th annual Signature Foundation Health Policy Forum.

Affinia Healthcare is a community health center organization that provides more than 43,000 patients a year with primary and preventive healthcare including medical, dental, behavioral health and pharmacy services. Over 90 percent of Affinia’s patients have incomes at or below 100% of the Federal poverty rate.

Affinia received the Senator Paul Simon Award in recognition of the implementation of a moderate complexity laboratory in house. The availability of these resources helps improve patient care by reducing barriers that make returning for test results very difficult for Affinia’s patient population; these barriers include transportation challenges, child care responsibilities and difficulty in taking off work. In addition, there are significant cost savings to Affinia with fewer tests needing to be outsourced to another lab. Affinia estimates that approximately $166,000 in testing costs is saved annually, freeing these resources for patient care.

Elizabeth Schlueter, Executive Director of Signature Healthcare Foundation said, “We are very happy to honor Affinia Healthcare for their efforts to provide effective healthcare to an underserved population.”

The Senator Paul Simon Award was instituted to honor Senator Simon’s service to Signature Healthcare Foundation as a member of its Board of Directors. The award is intended to encourage and reward cost effective strategies in healthcare.

Signature Healthcare Foundation was formed in 2002 with a mission to utilize physician leadership to improve healthcare quality, efficiency and affordability.