Community Hospital receives grant for breast care technology from Community Foundation for Monterey County
MONTEREY, Calif. — A $20,000 grant earmarked for equipment to convert mammography images from film to digital has been awarded to Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula by Community Foundation for Monterey County.
The grant is from the Dr. Frank Pye Smith Medical Facilities Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County. Dr. Smith was a leading neurosurgeon who had a long career with the University of Rochester Medical Center before moving to Pebble Beach in 1973. Dr. Smith continued to practice on the Peninsula and to write about the neurosurgery field. He died in 2003.
“We are honored to receive this generous support from the Dr. Frank Pye Smith Medical Facilities Fund of the Community Foundation for Monterey County ,” says Steven Packer, MD, president and chief executive officer of Community Hospital . “Dr. Smith was a respected leader at Community Hospital for many years and it is fitting that his legacy continues with this gift that will enhance our ability to serve our patients from throughout Monterey County.”
The funds will be used to help purchase an R2 digitizer, a device enabling Community Hospital to convert patients’ old analog film images to digital images. It is part of a larger effort to bring digital mammography to the Breast Care Center. The high-definition images produced through digital mammography provide for more accurate breast cancer diagnoses than film mammography. Converting the earlier images will improve the process of comparing a patient’s images over time to monitor changes.
Community Hospital is in the midst of a campaign to raise $2.5 million by year’s end to help bring the next generation in technology to the Breast Care Center. For more information about the fundraising initiative, please go to www.chomp.org or call Carol Hatton at Community Hospital Foundation, 625-4506.
Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, founded in 1934 and located at 23625 Holman Highway in Monterey, has grown and evolved in direct response to the changing healthcare needs of the people it serves. It is a nonprofit healthcare provider with 205 staffed acute-care hospital beds and 28 skilled-nursing beds, delivering a continuum of care from birth to end of life, and every stage in between. It serves the Monterey Peninsula and surrounding communities through 15 locations, including the main hospital, outpatient facilities, satellite laboratories, a mental health clinic, a short-term skilled nursing facility, Hospice of the Central Coast, and business offices. Find more information about Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula at www.chomp.org