Patagonia Santa Monica to Award $5,000 to Local Environmental Groups in 2nd Annual Community-Selected “Voice Your Choice” Campaign
Put Patagonia’s money where your mouth is! Cast your ballot in the outdoor clothing manufacturer’s second annual “Voice Your Choice” campaign to help Patagonia’s Santa Monica store decide how it should distribute $5,000 in grant money to three local environmental organizations. The top vote-getter will be awarded $2,500, with the second- and third-place organizations receiving $1,500 and $1,000 respectively.
Local groups nominated for the award are Save Open Space/Santa Monica Mountains (http://www.saveopenspace.com), Friends of the Los Angeles River (http://folar.org), and Surfrider Foundation’s Ocean Friendly Gardens (http://www.surfrider.org/ofg.asp). Votes will be accepted at the store at 2936 Main Street from September 24 through October 24. Participants can cast one vote per store per visit. No purchase is necessary.
The candidates were selected by Patagonia store members based on their local focus and range of environmental concerns. Consumers can learn more about the groups by visiting their websites as well as attending “Table Day” presentations by each organization that will be hosted by the store over the next few weeks. Winners will be announced in early November.
* * * *
UCLA Medical Group ranked among top physician organizations in state
In the midst of a national debate about the future of healthcare in America, the Integrated Healthcare Association (IHA) announced that for the fifth consecutive year, the UCLA Medical Group has been rated one of California’s top-performing physician organizations. Rankings are based on four important health care quality measures, including clinical quality, patient experience and satisfaction, coordinated diabetes care, and use of information technology to support safer medical care.
“UCLA is committed to be at the vanguard of health care measurement to improve care and increase transparency and accountability,” said Dr. Samuel A. Skootsky, medical director of the UCLA Medical Group. “UCLA has been justifiably proud of its capacity to treat the most complex illnesses as well as being proficient in the more usual types of preventive and chronic care reflected in the IHA award. We are committed to continuously improve on the care being provided to patients – and we work hard on behalf of our patients to achieve these results.”
The best performers — those who scored in the top 20 percent overall — were selected from among over 225 physician groups participating in the association’s Pay-for-Performance (P4P) program. UCLA was one of 46 California medical groups chosen and one of only five organizations in the Los Angeles area. Integrated Healthcare’s P4P program, the largest physician incentive program in the United States, enables physician groups to receive financial rewards from participating health plans based on their performance on quality measures.
