About Palo Alto Medical Foundation

The Palo Alto Medical Foundation for Health Care, Research and Education is a not-for-profit health care organization that is a pioneer in the multispecialty group practice of medicine.

PAMF is part of the Sutter Health family of not-for-profit hospitals and physician organizations that share resources and expertise to advance health care quality. Serving more than 100 communities in Northern California, Sutter Health is a regional leader in cardiac care as well as care of women and children, and is a pioneer in advanced patient safety technology.

The Foundation has three health care divisions: The Palo Alto Division, the Camino Division and the Santa Cruz Division.

Growing Stronger Together

Since the Palo Alto Medical Clinic (PAMC) was founded in 1930, there have been a handful of vital turning points for our organization. The first was in 1981, when the not-for-profit Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) was created. The second was in 1993, when PAMF became affiliated with the not-for-profit health care network of Sutter Health. Recently, we marked the third – and the most significant – milestone in our 78-year history: On January 1, 2008, the three medical groups historically affiliated with PAMF– Camino Medical Group (CMG), Palo Alto Medical Clinic and Santa Cruz Medical Clinic (SCMC) – merged to form a single medical group.

Today, the merged physician group operates as a single employer with more than 1,000 physicians serving more than 700,000 patients. We are currently working to complete the integration of our clinical, administrative and technical systems. Plans are already underway to implement seamless access to care across the PAMF network and include adoption of a single electronic health record that will enable retrieval of patient information from any PAMF facility throughout Alameda, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz Counties.

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