Irvine : Medical Center Creates $15-Million Foundation

The Irvine Medical Center has created a $15-million nonprofit foundation to provide grants for research and health education programs in the community.

Called the Irvine Community Foundation, it is “dedicated to the same functions that Irvine Medical Center was designed to support: community health, education and research,” said C. David Baker, a foundation board member.

The foundation will oversee the Irvine Medical Center (not the UCI Medical Center in Orange), a 177-bed facility scheduled to open in August of 1988, Baker said. The medical center board originally had intended that the center be a community hospital, but when it went looking for a financial partner it found American Medical International, a profit-oriented hospital chain, and accepted an offer from AMI to build the facility.

Included in the AMI offer was $15 million to set up a foundation, Baker said. The board members already have invested the money and intend to use the interest to award grants to health programs, he said. One applicant so far has been a chemical company that wishes to finance a drug-awareness program for parents and children, he said.