2007-08-28

Cleveland Clinic Gives OneCommunity $2 Million to Boost Regional
K-12 Education Effort; Up to 700,000 Students Could Benefit

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2007, at 1:30pm ET, Cleveland: Cleveland Clinic is giving OneCommunity $2 million to provide tools and training to help teachers incorporate digital learning materials and interactive video experiences directly into their daily classroom curricula. The initiative - called OneClassroom - aims to enhance educational outcomes for children across Northeast Ohio. 

The Clinic's commitment extends the OneCommunity network, already one of the country's largest and fastest educational broadband networks, to 1,500 public and private schools across 18 counties. It is an extension of the Clinic's five-year, $10-million commitment in cash and services to support and enhance Northeast Ohio's regional K-12 schools, which was announced in January 2005.  A list of school districts receiving support can be found at www.onecommunity.org.

Last year, OneCommunity, its partners, and the Cleveland Metropolitan School District leveraged a nearly $1 million initial investment from the Clinic to attract $8 million in federal reimbursement and construct what's now one of the most advanced digital infrastructures in the country. At its launch, Collinwood High School biology students first demonstrated its potential, actively engaging and interacting with Cleveland Clinic surgeons performing open-heart surgery broadcast over the Internet via the OneCommunity high-speed network.

"Over the last several years, OneCommunity has been a wonderful partner in developing regional health and educational strategies and programs," said Oliver C. Henkel, Jr., Cleveland Clinic's Executive Director of Government, Community and Education Relations. "The organization has skillfully managed the broad collaborations required to leverage community assets and reach out to large target audiences across the region.  Our new commitment offers the latest educational tools and training to the region's teachers, along with content and programming aimed at engaging, inspiring and preparing our youth for highly skilled job opportunities like those available in the growing health care field," he added. 

"This is going to be a great collaborative platform for delivering educational content to the students in the region," said Eric Fingerhut, Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents and Chair of eTech, the State of Ohio's educational technology organization. "If we want to have a significant impact on education, the community needs to pool its resources like this and co-invest in our children."

"We are tremendously grateful to the Cleveland Clinic for enabling us to launch this phase of our OneClassroom effort," said OneCommunity President Scot Rourke.  "We'll be able to reach most of the region's K-12 public classrooms by the end of 2007 and look forward to working with all of our partners to distribute the best programming from Northeast Ohio and the world."

OneCommunity developed the OneClassroom program in partnership with WVIZ/PBS and 90.3 WCPN ideastream and regional leaders from Instructional Technology Centers, higher education, health care providers, teachers, local foundations, and global technology companies. Together the group is developing innovative and transformative approaches to enhance educational learning experiences and workforce development efforts across Northeast Ohio. These efforts are made possible by OneCommunity's shared digital infrastructure, including its regional fiber-optic communications backbone, and substantial hardware and software resources.

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About Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland Clinic, located in Cleveland, Ohio, is a not-for-profit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Cleveland Clinic was founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation.  U.S. News & World Report consistently names Cleveland Clinic as one of the nation's best hospitals in its annual "America's Best Hospitals" survey.  Approximately 1,800 full-time salaried physicians and researchers at Cleveland Clinic and Cleveland Clinic Florida represent more than 100 medical specialties and subspecialties.  In 2006, there were 3.1 million outpatient visits to Cleveland Clinic.  Patients came for treatment from every state and from more than 80 countries.  There were more than 53,000 hospital admissions to Cleveland Clinic in 2006.  Cleveland Clinic's Web site address is www.clevelandclinic.org.

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