Hispanic Business Journal
Silicon Valley
June 1999

Santa Clara family health plan wins national award
from Smithkline Beecham

Community Efforts Providing Low-Income Health Care win $50,000
By Mary Ellen Seitz

Santa Clara Family Health Plan was chosen by global healthcare company SmithKline Beecham as the winner of its 1999 Health Care Partnership Award. Santa Clara Family Health Plan will receive a $50,000 grant in recognition of its success in improving access to quality health care for low-income families in Santa Clara County.

Santa Clara Family Health Plan was the most impressive of the many outstanding entries we received from managed care organizations throughout the country," said Dennis White, president of SmithKline Beecham's Integrated Healthcare Division.

By taking advantage of two State funded health coverage programs, Healthy Families and Expanded Medi-Cal for Children, Santa Clara Family Health Plan has increased the number of low-income families receiving healthcare by 13 percent over the past year. Since its inception in 1997, Santa Clara Family Health Plan has grown from a start-up created by the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors to an active force in the community. The Plan works closely with community-based organizations and uses creative, broad-based communication efforts to affect the importance of health care coverage for low-income, underserved families.

"Family Health Plan's ability to identify community health care needs and to leverage State programs to benefit low-income families where language and cultural issues are also barriers was a concept that the judges found profoundly effective," White said.

SCFHP will use the grant award to further its outreach to schools in underserved neighborhoods.

"We are so pleased to receive the SmithKline Beecham Healthcare Award," said Leona M. Butler, Chief Executive Officer of Santa Clara Family Health Plan, "because it means we can dedicate more dollars to our number one priority -- bringing quality health care to the children of our community."

Award entries were judged by the winner of last year's SmithKline Beecham Health Care Partnership Award, Arizona Physicians IPA, Inc. in Phoenix and representatives of The Leonard Davis Institute of the University of Pennsylvania and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Award applicants included health maintenance organizations and integrated delivery systems across the country.

Other finalists for the award were Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA for its Wellness and Violence Prevention Project; Hennepin County Medical Center Systems of Minneapolis for its Glenwood-Lyndale Community Clinic; and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan of the Mid-Atlantic for its Building Hope Program.

"We are so pleased to receive the SmithKline Beecham Healthcare Award, because if means we can dedicate more dollars to our number one priority--bringing quality health care to the children on our community."
--Leona M. Butler,CEO
Santa Clara Family Health Plan

SmithKline Beecham discovers, develops, manufactures and markets pharmaceuticals, vaccines, over-the-counter medicines and health-related consumer products, and provides healthcare services including clinical laboratory testing and disease management. For company information, visit SmithKline Beecham at http://www.sb.com.