About Us

The Foundation for Medical Excellence is a public non-profit foundation, whose mission is to promote quality healthcare and sound health policy. To achieve its mission, The Foundation develops and presents a wide range of educational programs, and provides consulting services.

Mission and History

Created in 1984, The Foundation For Medical Excellence is dedicated to improving the health of the public through health care professional education and the development of innovative health policy. The Foundation is recognized by the NW healthcare community as a neutral venue for the discussion of health care related issues.

The Foundation was established by a group of Oregon health care leaders as a response to troubling cases of inappropriate drug prescribing and of physicians impaired by substance abuse. Over the next few years, the Foundation expanded its portfolio to include educational programs in the areas of medical malpractice, sexual misconduct with a focus on physician-patient communication. The Foundation created the Collegium, a regular meeting of senior and junior physicians who together explore the ethical and moral issues that challenge health care professionals as they focus on the health of individual patients and of the public in general. Today the Foundation has expanded its programs to include all health care managers and includes a leadership coaching element.

In the 1990’s, the Foundation created an array of educational events, including the Benson-Kendall Visiting Professorship, the Kitzhaber Lectureship and the Sunrise Leadership Forum that brought national experts to the Northwest. The Oregon Health Assessment Project (OHAP) was created and drove innovative health policy in Oregon and in 2006, under the direction of former Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber, M.D., the Archimedes/We Can Do Better Movement was established. The Foundation continues as a venue for innovative health policy discussions, both in the national and local arenas.

The Foundation is committed to investing in aspiring health care leaders by sponsoring medical student scholarships to identify and support future leaders and encourage their professional development and provides consulting, coaching and referral services to stabilize physician careers and to support clinical and organizational leaders.

Most recently, the Foundation has partnered with interested health care leaders, medical societies, associations and health systems and the State of Oregon to develop and implement the Oregon Wellness Program (OWP), a state-wide network of mental health providers to respond to self-referred health care professionals who find themselves in distress.