Before the Promise Fund Women’s Health Center opened in 2020 at a FoundCare site in Palm Springs in Palm Beach County, only 10% of FoundCare patients with orders for a mammogram received one.

The Promise Fund non-profit has a patient navigator model that matches patients with personal health care advocates. The center also includes a 3D mammography machine donated by medtech company Hologic. Since it set up shop at the FoundCare location, the percentage of patients getting their mammograms has risen to 60%.

Promise Fund of Florida, based in West Palm Beach, was founded in 2018 by businesswoman Laurie Silvers, non-profit head Julie Fisher Cummings and Nancy Brinker, founder of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer organization. They wanted to cut the number of deaths from breast and cervical cancer in Palm Beach County by helping uninsured and underinsured women get early screening and care. The organization has provided screening, navigation and treatment for more than 18,000 women in Palm Beach County since and aims to reach 80,000 uninsured women by 2024.

This year, the Promise Fund received $2.7 million in federal funding secured by U.S. Reps. Lois Frankel, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is a breast cancer survivor, to add three more Promise Fund Women’s Health Centers, two in Palm Beach County and its first in Broward.

— By Mike Vogel