Improving Access to Quality Healthcare in the Upper Midwest and Beyond
For over fifteen years, Helmsley has been dedicated to making sure that the vibrant, tightly-knit communities of rural America have access to the highest quality healthcare.
We invest in telemedicine, fund programs that increase access to behavioral health services, and support hospitals and first responders to make sure they have the best equipment to treat their patients. We do this by working hand-in-hand with a range of partners across the region – including but not limited to non-profits, health systems, law enforcement agencies, universities, first responders, and public health services.
To date, we have worked closely with partners across nine states – Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming – as well as two U.S. Pacific Territories, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands. The models that are proving to be successful in this region hold the promise to transform care in other rural communities across the country.
Telemedicine is an essential solution for addressing our country’s healthcare crisis, especially for rural America. We partner with organizations to make it more accessible for patients, healthcare professionals, and providers.
Our grants have helped develop the first-ever national telehealth certificate program to make sure telehealth care is high quality and consistent.
We bring specialized care to emergency rooms and enable virtual training for healthcare workers on the frontlines of COVID-19 care.
Our investments have helped build a 24/7 telemedicine behavioral health team. We fund training fellowships as well as telehealth.
We support a pilot initiative that uses video conferencing to help law enforcement connect people with mental health professionals during an emergency.
We’ve pledged $13M to help create an adolescent behavioral health center that will serve four states and include a first-of-its-kind behavioral health urgent care.
Our grants aim to provide connected-device Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) to every first responder, as well as state-of-the-art diagnostic tools to hospitals across the upper Midwest. We’ve also helped deliver nearly 400 LUCAS mechanical CPR devices to rural hospitals to help respond to cardiac events during COVID-19 as well as in the future.
We brought the first-ever Mobile Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) with a game-changing, super ambulance-mobile ER to the region.
In rural communities, law enforcement officers are often the first, and sometimes the only, people to the scene of a cardiac emergency. We funded 25,000 AEDs across 8 states to allow them to have this life-saving equipment.
Between 21% and 38% of all 911 calls are related to mental health, substance abuse, and crisis situations police are not adequately trained to handle. Virtual Crisis Care equips law enforcement officers with iPads that connect them to counselors, reducing involuntary hospitalizations and jailings in 80% of users.
Youth living in rural areas are at greater risk of suicide than those in urban areas. A $13M grant helped build the Helmsley Behavioral Health Center, which expanded mental health access, especially for adolescents, in South Dakota.
We invested in the world’s first ECMO truck, which brings rare emergency technology and practices beyond the walls of medical institutions. We’ve also granted $8.8M towards telerobotics research, potentially paving the way for remote surgeries across wide distances.
November 22, 2024
November 19, 2024
October 1, 2024
After expanding our Rural Healthcare Program into two U.S. Pacific Territories, we added Hawaii as our ninth state. As our first grant in Hawaii, we granted $10.6 million to Wilcox Medical Center on Kauai for state-of-the-art diagnostic and radiology equipment. “The Helmsley Charitable Trust is thrilled to welcome Hawaii to our Rural Healthcare Program,” Helmsley Trustee Walter Panzirer said. “This…
September 20, 2024
In my younger days working as a paramedic and firefighter in California and a school resource officer in South Dakota, I saw first-hand the disparity between the quality of healthcare offered to rural Americans compared to their urban counterparts. So when I took on the role of a trustee for The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, I…
September 3, 2024
NEW YORK, September 3, 2024 – Today, The Trevor Project and The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust announced that they’re joining forces to support the mental health of LGBTQ+ young people across rural America. Through a $5 million grant from the Helmsley Charitable Trust, the two organizations will develop a targeted multimedia campaign to raise awareness of…
August 26, 2024
After expanding our Rural Healthcare Program into two U.S. Pacific Territories, we added Hawaii as our ninth state. As our first grant in Hawaii, we granted $10.6 million to Wilcox Medical Center on Kauai for state-of-the-art diagnostic and radiology equipment. “The Helmsley Charitable Trust is thrilled to welcome Hawaii to our Rural Healthcare Program,” Helmsley Trustee Walter Panzirer said. “This…
August 2, 2024
LIHUE, August 2, 2024 – The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust has added Hawaii as the ninth state in its Rural Healthcare Program, announcing a $10.6 million grant to provide Wilcox Medical Center in Kauai with state-of-the-art diagnostic and radiology equipment. Walter Panzirer, a Trustee for the Helmsley Charitable Trust, said the funding will help Wilcox Medical…
July 7, 2024
SAIPAN, July 8, 2024 – Residents of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) will gain access to life-saving diagnostic technology thanks to more than $6.4 million in grant funding from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust that will provide the islands’ first magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine. Helmsley’s grant will allow the Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation…
$700 M+
committed
694
grants awarded
9
states reached
