Merck Foundation to invest $22M across 11 organizations to improve cardiac care

The Merck Foundation, the charitable arm of biopharmaceutical company Merck, has established a $22 million initiative to improve cardiovascular care. 

Called the Collaborative for Equity in Cardiac Care, the foundation will provide grants to 11 nonprofit and public healthcare organizations for five years, according to a Nov. 3 news release from the foundation. 

Together the groups will help “bridge gaps in the delivery of care for a range of heart conditions and advance sustainable, and potentially scalable, approaches to improve the lives of people with heart disease,” the release said. 

The Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity will serve as the collaborative’s national program office, providing technical assistance, peer-to-peer learning opportunities, site evaluation, and dissemination of the collaborative’s results and learnings. 

The 11 organizations in the collaborative are:

1. Capital Health System (Trenton, N.J.)
   
2. The Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness (Madison, Wis.)
   
3. Gallup (N.M.) Community Health
   
4. Georgia State University Research Foundation and Atlanta Regional Collaborative for Health Improvement 
   
5. La Clínica del Pueblo (Washington, D.C.)
   
6. MedNorth Health Center (New Hanover, N.C.)
   
7. Providence Medical Foundation (Sonoma County, Calif.)
   
8. Public Health Institute and Population Health Innovation Lab (Lake County, Calif.)
   
9. University of Chicago
   
10. UPMC Center for High-Value Health Care (McKeesport, Pa.)
    
11. Zufall Health Center (Morris County, N.J.)