Of the $828 million in operating expenses we incurred last year, about 15% can be defined as community benefits.

Hospitals use the term "community benefits" to describe costs of providing services that are not paid for. For Community, this includes:

• $22 million to provide public programs for the elderly and disabled
• $23 million in charity care
• $42 million to provide public programs for the medically underserved
• $35 million to provide teaching hospital services and other benefits, including interpreters

These are the actual costs Community paid – more than $122 million last year alone – above and beyond funding we receive to help care for the poor.

Other community-benefit contributions include:
Medical Education programs – address continuing shortages of health care workers in the Valley by partnering with Fresno City College for the award-winning Paradigm Nursing Program and nine other medical careers programs.

Asthma Education and Management programs – provide education events, training for medical providers and support for those suffering from chronic conditions, plus screenings and assessments.

Community Diabetes Care Center – educates the public about medical issues, treatment programs and ways to stay healthy, provides support, screenings and assessments.

MedWatch – an award-winning weekly television show produced by Community covers safety, health and medical education on KSEE 24, an NBC affiliate, and on Fresno’s Catholic diocesan station KNXT 49.

Safe Kids Central Valley – Community serves as the lead organization in coordinating the efforts of 20 local agencies to prevent childhood injuries, with a focus on car seat and seat belt usage, and educating families on how to prevent burns and falls.

Community Cardiac Response Project – places Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) in homes, churches, event centers and businesses in seven counties to assist in life-saving resuscitation.

Community Medical Foundation – Thanks to all its generous donor-investors, Community’s patients continue to enjoy treatment in state-of-the-art facilities and the latest in leading-edge technology. In 2007, gift highlights included: $700,000 from Chukchansi to buy mammography and X-ray equipment to upgrade Community Medical Center-Oakhurst; the Leon S. Peters and Pete P. Peters foundations joined equally for a gift of $3 million in support of Clovis Community maternal child service; the fifth year of the $10 million Table Mountain Rancheria gift; and $500,000 from Tom Richards, plus a pledge to act as construction manager, to build Terry's House, a place for families of trauma and burn patients to stay while their loved ones receive critical care.

Community Regional’s Leon S. Peters Burn Center – works with area firefighters and American Burn Association on burn prevention education and helped raise $200,000 for burn survivors through the September 2007 “Fill the Helmet” effort.