Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has appointed Herbert Smitherman Jr., M.D., M.P.H., F.A.C.P., assistant dean of Community and Urban Health and associate professor of Internal Medicine for the Wayne State University School of Medicine, to the Detroit Medical Center Legacy Board.
The DMC Legacy Board was created as a result of the sale of the Detroit Medical Center to Vanguard Health Systems. The board is to oversee Vanguard's contractual commitments and develop transfer agreements to help fund two charitable foundations that will manage DMC's $140 million in charitable contributions. Vanguard Health Systems purchased all of the DMC hospitals for $1.5 billion and plans to invest $850 million in improving those assets and in new buildings.
"It is both an honor and a privilege to serve my city, the mayor and the community in which I live as a member of the DMC Legacy Board," said Dr. Smitherman, whose term on the board runs through Dec. 31, 2016. "Ensuring, on behalf of our city and our region, that Vanguard lives up to its commitments is an important function and the principal purpose of this board."
The 20-member board, according to the Michigan Attorney General's Office, will oversee an agreement that includes Vanguard's commitment to charity care through 2020. Board representatives include members of the DMC Board, new trustees, and appointees by the mayor of Detroit, the Wayne County executive and the attorney General.
Dr. Smitherman has spent past 23 years working with communities in Detroit to develop urban-based primary care delivery systems that integrate the health and social goals and concerns of the community. He has been successful in establishing and working with best-practice models that engage community participation and collaboration as the key element in creating sustainable primary care programs. Those efforts led to the publication of a book, "Taking Care of the Uninsured: A Path to Reform," which details the 10-year path of the Voices of Detroit Initiative. That project, launched in 1998 with a $5 million grant from the Kellog Foundation, sought to ease the strain on emergency rooms used by the uninsured as primary care facilities by providing access to true primary care.