About TAP-IN
The Project | Our Board & Staff | Careers
What We Do
TAP-IN was created to connect seasoned healthcare professionals with opportunities for purposeful civic engagement, with an initial focus on tapping-into this wonderful resource to donate their time in service to the uninsured in many of the nations free clinics. This innovative program reaches out to the hundreds of thousands of physicians, nurses, dentists and other health professionals who have chosen to leave behind their paid careers, but not their professional values or passions. The nation's nearly 1200 free clinics are an increasingly important part of the safety net for the uninsured, and are staffed predominantly by volunteers. Tapping into a national treasure of experienced clinicians to meet this important need is at the core of the TAP-IN mission. We are currently operational in select metropolitan areas of North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Texas and will launch in Ohio in late 2008.
Supporting Quality Free Clinic Care
Free Clinics are a place where health professionals can work together with the shared goal of providing quality care to appreciative patients, without many of the hassles of today's complex and often impersonal healthcare system. To ensure TAP-IN's resources are used to the immediate benefit of the community, we identify clinics that are positioned to deliver multi-specialty care to patients in an environment that provides a quality experience for their clinicians and patients. In addition to other quality standards, participating clinics are required to provide malpractice protection for all TAP-IN clinicians, and must have a well-established volunteer program.
How We Do It
Recruitment of health professionals is based on the specified needs of participating clinics We actively market volunteer opportunities to physicians, dentists, nurses, pharmacists,, social workers and mental health professionals ages 55 plus. Direct mail, paid advertising, the Web, and strategic partnerships are used to reach out to prospective volunteers in our select markets. Those interested can visit the "volunteer" area of our website to register their interests. In order to find the best match for each person's skills and expectations, TAP-IN's Volunteer Engagement Specialists work directly with clinicians to place them in a nearby participating free clinic. TAP-IN's services are offered free of charge to participating clinics.
How We Began
TAP-IN was conceived by The American Health Initiative in late 2004 as a practical and creative way to apply a rich and underutilized resource - hundreds of thousands of retired and near retired health professionals - to a serious and growing social problem - 47 million uninsured Americans. The formative program was supported by a two-year initiating grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies which, along with others, continues to support the growth and development of the program.
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