Scottsdale couple Raymond and Roma Wittcoff make gift to support work of Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center

Thursday, August 10, 2006

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Raymond and Roma Wittcoff, Scottsdale, Ariz., have made a joint $200,000 gift to support Mayo Clinic's recently launched Health Policy Center. Mayo's first National Symposium on Health Care Reform was held May 21-23, 2006, in Rochester, Minn. The Wittcoffs were among the participants, who included more than 200 national leaders representing business, health care, government, public policy and patient advocacy.

The symposium was the first of several initiatives that will bring together people from across the country with the commitment to bring about patient-centered changes in health care policy and delivery. "It was time to lend our voice to public policy discussions on behalf of patients," says Denis A. Cortese, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Mayo Clinic.

The Wittcoffs are natives of Saint Louis and have lived in Arizona since 1992. Their philanthropy, individually and as a couple, reflects their lifetime commitment to education, medicine, the arts and environment. Raymond Wittcoff was a pioneer in public television, helping to found KETV-Channel 9 in Saint Louis and to develop the national educational television network, now known as the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). He was also instrumental in the redevelopment of downtown Saint Louis and the merger of Barnes and Jewish Hospitals. Both he and Mrs. Wittcoff are trustees emeritus of Washington University.

Roma Wittcoff has also served on the boards of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and Missouri Botanical Garden. Together, they are principal benefactors of Mayo Clinic, supporting medical research, the Mayo Clinic Hospital, the Mayo Clinic Specialty Building, and, most recently, Mayo Clinic's Health Policy Center. Raymond and Roma Wittcoff are also members of Mayo's Leadership Council in Arizona, one of a nationwide network of advisory boards that support the mission of Mayo Clinic. Other Mayo Clinic Leadership Councils are based in Jacksonville, Fla., and Chicago and are being developed in Washington, D.C., and Rochester, Minn., where Mayo Clinic was established more than 100 years ago.

As a national leader in health care, Mayo Clinic is working to bring key stakeholders together to find ways to ensure affordable, quality, patient-centered health care for all Americans. The reason Mayo Clinic is taking on these initiatives in health care reform goes directly to the organization's primary value, according to Robert Smoldt, Mayo Clinic's chief administrative officer.

"Mayo needs to be involved in national health care reform because we believe that the needs of the patient come first," says Smoldt. "Through generous gifts, such as the Wittcoffs', Mayo Clinic hopes to bring the patient voice forward and jump start health care reform in our country."

Mayo Clinic is the first and largest integrated, not-for-profit group practice in the world. As a leading academic medical center in the Southwest, Mayo Clinic focuses on providing specialty and surgical care in more than 65 disciplines at its outpatient facility in north Scottsdale and at Mayo Clinic Hospital. The 208-licensed bed hospital is located at 56th Street and Mayo Boulevard (north of Bell Road) in northeast Phoenix, and provides inpatient care to support the medical and surgical specialties of the clinic, which is located at 134th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale.

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