1997 Annual Report

President's Letter

Building a Health Care System...

Friends,

There is almost nothing as exciting and gratifying in life as seeing actual construction begin on a project that has been long in the planning--whether that be a new home for your family or a new home for a longtime community institution.

Those are the feelings we at PAMF experienced--shared by thousands of our patients and area residents--when we witnessed the groundbreaking and start of construction in early 1997 for our new campus on El Camino Real in Palo Alto. This new campus was, quite literally, ten years in the making to get to this stage.

We watched the digging of the immense hole in the ground, the pouring of vast areas of concrete for the foundations, and finally the rising of the steel beams until they imposed against the sky. And we watched and worried as El Niño's wet fury tore through Palo Alto and flooded us, for a time, as it did hundreds of area residents. But we pumped out the small lake on the site, and are moving full steam ahead toward an opening in mid-1999. Throughout PAMF's Palo Alto facilities, physicians and staff are already planning The Move--which will occur over one long weekend to minimize inconvenience for patients and staff alike. The Move is beginning to resemble preparations for the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

Our Palo Alto staff members are not the only PAMF people in the throes of planning a big move: The staff of the Fremont Center satellite across the Bay is gearing up for a major relocation in September, 1998. They will be moving into a custom-built new building, just a block from the existing facilities. The new building creates room for the fast-growing health care services there, responding to community demand for quality care.

Building and moving are only part of the activities and events that occurred in the past year at PAMF.

In our Research Institute, we added an exciting new department: the Department of Health Services Research, headed by a distinguished research scientist, Sandra Wilson, Ph.D. She and her staff will be studying the vitally important area of what works or doesn't work in health care services--everything from community health-promotion programs to how to communicate most effectively with patients. The Institute continued its basic biomedical research into the body's immune system, cardiovascular and cholesterol-metabolism processes--areas vital to understanding human health.

The PAMF Education Division expanded its array of programs for the community, building on the success of its Women's Health Resource Center off the main Clinic lobby in Palo Alto. The division launched a major initiative of expanding its collaboration with area schools, which ultimately will benefit every family in the communities we serve.

We are looking toward the future in other ways, as well. PAMF is a pilot-test site for a new, highly secure electronic medical record" that will vastly increase accessibility of information and directly improve the already high quality of care our patients receive. PAMF launched a major redesign of its Internet Web site, creating a highly interactive, state-of-the-art site that will help patients and others get to the best information available about personal and family health.

Above all in importance, however, are the people who are part of our not-for-profit, community-based organization the physicians, scientists, educators and support staff, as well as those whom we serve in our region: our patients, participants in our community programs and, ultimately, all of us who will reap the benefits of our scientific research.

We are especially indebted to those whose generous philanthropic support is helping make possible our new campus and Fremont Center building, our continuing research and our community health programs. We are constructing not just buildings but a complete health system" for the people and communities we serve.

Working together, we are truly preparing to meet the challenges of the next century and new millenium.

Chauncey E. Schmidt
Chairman, Board of Trustees

Robert W. Jamplis, M.D.
President and CEO