Atrium Health details $500 million fundraising campaign for medical research, education
Atrium Health on Tuesday rolled out an ambitious fundraising campaign to transform how it cares for patients.
The new, six-year campaign, called “Giving Hope,” aims to raise at least $500 million to support advancements in education and research. It also addresses population growth and access to care, reductions in federal funding and aging infrastructure on the hospital system’s central campus in Charlotte.
The hospital system called its campaign “the largest, comprehensive philanthropic campaign in the history of Charlotte.”
“Great change is upon us,” Atrium CEO Gene Woods said.
The campaign has already raised nearly $75 million, efforts that have been led by campaign chair and former Bank of America leader Hugh McColl.
“Today, we embark on a once-in-a-lifetime endeavor for our city,” McColl said in a statement. “The outcomes created by this ambitious campaign will make a tremendous, positive impact for the next half century and beyond, with an emphasis on the four pillars of social impact, education, research and patient-centered facilities.”
The program will help underserved communities through mobile screenings, local vaccination events, virtual primary care in rural schools and virtual behavioral health throughout the health system.
The med school and the campaign
The Wake Forest School of Medicine – Charlotte campus, expected to break ground next year, will be a springboard for the campaign’s emphasis on education.
The new school, a partnership with Wake Forest Baptist Health, including the Wake Forest School of Medicine, will bring a second campus of the medical school to Charlotte, focusing on research in areas including Alzheimer’s Disease, cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and addiction.
Ways to support the campaign include naming gifts, funding capital projects and scholarship funds for medical students.
One such scholarship, recently seeded with $5 million from Atrium Health — the Bishop George E. Battle Jr. Scholarship — will support the continuing education of those who live in underserved communities and are in pursuit of a degree in health sciences at an Atrium Health-affiliated college or university.
Atrium hopes to receive matches from the community for the Battle scholarship fund to create a $10 million fund, Woods said when announcing that scholarship in March.
“Support from the community will enable us to recruit and retain talent and create the next generation medical leaders who deliver exceptional care,” said Wake Forest Baptist Health CEO Dr. Julie Ann Freischlag, who also is dean of the Wake Forest School of Medicine and chief academic officer for Atrium Health.
The new medical school and other ongoing development projects feed into Atrium’s plans to create a “’Silicon Valley’ for health care innovation,” CEO Woods has said.
The Charlotte medical school, which will be built on a 20-acre parcel at the intersection of Baxter Street and South McDowell Street, is expected to host its first class of students in 2024.
Upcoming projects
Last month, Atrium Health opened Atrium Health Kenilworth Medical Plaza I and II — a more than 400,000-square-foot plaza at 1237 and 1225 Harding Place that cost $228.1 million — less than a mile from the site of its future medical school.
Other upcoming projects include Carolinas Rehabilitation and Union West opening by next year and plans to renovate Atrium Health Musculoskeletal Institute and Atrium Health Levine Children’s Hospital outpatient centers.
“With philanthropic support, we’ll not only see new buildings on the horizon, but the development of programs and initiatives, state-of-the-art, high-tech equipment, and research and educational opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t exist,” said Armando Chardiet, Atrium Health Foundation president.
Observer reporter Hannah Smoot contributed to this story.
This story was originally published May 25, 2021 at 1:56 PM.