International Medical Equipment Collaborative

CONTACT:

1600 Osgood Street, 30-1 Y-8
North Andover, MA 01845

www.imecamerica.org

Tom Keefe, President

DESCRIPTION:

In 1994 the healthcare industry was "downsizing" in response to public pressures over consumer costs. Hospitals were reducing and eliminating services, and even closing. Surplus medical equipment was being generated, and the question arose of what to do with it. Philanthropy quickly seized the opportunity.

Tom Keefe, a 20-year veteran of hospital senior management teams, organized a group to test and promote the idea that this American surplus could make a huge difference in raising the standard of health care for the neediest in developing nations overseas. American medical technology is the most innovative in the world, so we routinely generate useful surplus; what better solution than to recycle it to those who need it most? Thus IMEC (International Medical Equipment Collaborative) was formed, as a benefit corporation, to obtain surplus equipment from U.S. hospitals, recondition it, identify hospitals and clinics abroad that need it, and train biomedical technicians from those hospitals to use it. So far they have conveyed equipment to healthcare facilities in 70 countries. In 2005, they sent 25 shipments to 35 facilities in 15 countries.

American hospitals are more than willing to donate their surplus equipment when they understand that this is philanthropy at work, and not private profit. Donors — you — are needed to help with operating and institution-building expenses.

(1998: HUMAN SERVICES: Health and Aging: General)