by
Diana Bradley, Staff Writer | November 23, 2012
From the November 2012 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
“Let’s say someone’s 4-year-old daughter has lymphoma,” Imerman says. “Talking to another parent whose kid has gone through the same thing could be really helpful.” The organization’s largest annual fundraiser is the Chicago Marathon. Last year, 170 runners participated as members of Team Imerman Angels, raising $140,000.
“We have touched 55 percent more lives this year than last, and we helped 1,600 families last year,” says Imer man. “We want to connect every two dots in the cancer world so there aren’t any lone dots left.”
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MedShare
In 1998, A.B. Short, a nonprofit entrepreneur, and Bob Freeman, a retired businessman, were concerned with the critical health care needs of underserved populations worldwide, and the environmental threat of discarded medical supplies and equipment. To solve these issues, the national nonprofit organization MedShare was created.
The organization aims to bridge the gap between surplus and need, improving health care and the environment. And to do this, over the past 14 years, MedShare has sent over 800 40-foot containers brimming with medical supplies to the developing world, provisioned hundreds of medical mission teams, and saved over 200,000 feet of landfill space, resulting in countless lives saved and improved communities, according to Hannah Miners, MedShare’s marketing and PR manager.
And the services the charity provides make perfect sense. Medical supply wastage was covered in a New York Times report last August, which found that U.S. hospitals annually dispose of thousands of tons of usable medical supplies and equipment — by some measures 7,000 tons a year, a value of $20 billion.
“[Because of these statistics], we are constantly reaching out to build relationships with hospitals and work with them to recycle their usable equipment that they no longer need,” says Miners.
MedShare’s most requested medical devices include: biomedical equipment, sutures, and stainless steel surgical tools.
But even donated equipment can cause issues for developing countries, with over 40 percent of it going unused, according to an August Lancet report. This is where Med- Share differs from other humanitarian aid organizations; the organization practices a “pull system,” rather than a “push system,” Miners explains.
