On August 25, 2018 CPMC’s new Mission Bernal Campus opened in San Francisco. The campus replaces the old St. Luke’s Hospital and combines state-of-the-art technology with a community hospital setting. In anticipation of the opening, CPMC Foundation partnered with the St. Luke’s Auxiliary, a volunteer organization that has supported the hospital for decades, to join the Auxiliary’s annual Musée fundraiser with an opening celebration for the new hospital.
Two hundred people attended the sold-out August 8 event, themed “Celebrating New Life for St. Luke’s Hospital at CPMC’s Mission Bernal Campus,” which included a cocktail reception and dinner, tours of the new building, an auction, and a fund-a-need. The program raised nearly $100,000 to benefit Mission Bernal’s new Acute Care for the Elderly (ACE) unit. ACE is an innovative, interdisciplinary program in which specially trained healthcare professionals and volunteers work with older patients, and it’s the first of its kind in the Sutter system. Led by Dr. Wendy Zachary, it builds on the success of her Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP), which has reduced rates of infection, length of stay, and improved outcomes for older patients since it began in 2011. Seed funding to get HELP off the ground came from CPMC Foundation and its philanthropic partners; the fact that it has led to the creation of ACE demonstrates the long-term impact philanthropy can have.