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Banner Health raises $40M for Alzheimer’s care

Posted: Wednesday, April 27, 2016 1:00 am

PHOENIX — After five years of fundraising, Banner Health has met its goal of collecting $40 million in donations for its Alzheimer’s care facility.

About 3,000 individuals and companies contributed to the campaign, which launched in 2011, and proceeds will go directly toward the Phoenix-based Banner Alzheimer’s Institute.

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Two-thirds of the donations will fund preventative research of the disease and the remaining third will be directed toward improving treatment for patients already suffering from Alzheimer’s.

Banner Health, which acquired Banner Casa Grande Medical Center in 2014, announced in a press release that the $40 million will help the nonprofit implement a new model of care for treating Alzheimer’s disease.

This new model includes connecting patients and caregivers with an array of services that address their physical, emotional and practical needs. Banner Health is attempting to establish a new standard for Alzheimer’s care, which the organization plans to complete in three phases by 2018.

It is expected that all primary care physicians working in the Banner network will operate under this new standard of care and it may be shared with other health care facilities.

The $40 million campaign has also helped launch an Alzheimer’s prevention registry, which connects research scientists with an online community of healthy study participants. More than 214,000 people have joined the registry as of this year.

Researchers at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute are developing therapies that attempt to treat the disease before its symptoms are made visible in a patient. The preventative drugs BAI has tested are used on healthy individuals at risk for developing Alzheimer’s.

BAI will continue to actively raise funds for Alzheimer’s research. The facility expects the disease to have a higher rate of incidence in the near future.