Seattle Philanthropist Pledges $5 million to Create Virginia Mason Learning, Innovation and Simulation Center
Virginia Mason has received a $5 million commitment from philanthropist Floyd Jones to establish the Floyd Jones Learning, Innovation and Simulation Center at Virginia Mason.
The center will serve as an education hub and incubator where Virginia Mason team members will collaborate with patients and their families in developing and testing processes intended to continuously improve quality, safety and the patient experience. The center is scheduled to open on the Virginia Mason campus in 2018.
This pledge brings Jones’ total support of Virginia Mason to more than $26 million. Ten years ago, he and his late wife, Delores, donated $20 million for construction of the Floyd & Delores Jones Pavilion at Virginia Mason. The pavilion houses the medical center’s Emergency Department, critical care unit, inpatient orthopedics and other patient services. Also, the Virginia Mason Cancer Institute is named in honor of Floyd and Delores Jones.
“Giving brings me more joy than anything else I could do or think of doing,” said Jones, a Seattle resident and retired stock broker. “I’ve personally experienced the commitment to quality and safety at Virginia Mason. I am proud to support its goal of transforming health care for the benefit of everyone.”
“We are very grateful to Floyd for his very generous support of Virginia Mason,” said Chairman and CEO Gary S. Kaplan, MD. “He has been a true partner in our work. We are a learning organization and his gift will enable us to integrate innovation and simulation with learning to benefit our patients and our team members.”
The Learning, Innovation and Simulation Center will enhance the ongoing work in which patients and their families regularly participate with Virginia Mason staff in the organization’s continuous-improvement workshops. These events use tools of the Virginia Mason Production System, the organization’s management methodology, to eliminate waste (anything that does not add value from the patient’s perspective) and to advance quality, safety and efficiency.
“Increasingly, we view patients and their families as our partners as we co-design health care processes together based on their ideas and needs,” Dr. Kaplan said. “It’s exciting to imagine where this important work will take us in the years ahead.”
In addition to Virginia Mason, Jones has donated millions of dollars to a variety of organizations over the years, including the Floyd and Delores Jones Playhouse in Seattle; American Civil Liberties Union; Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission; and the Stanwood-Camano YMCA. He and his partner, Alene Moris, are committed to equality, justice and basic human rights, and they strive to improve their community in significant ways.
Jones, the son of a cotton sharecropper in the South, was born into poverty. He graduated from the University of Washington where he studied finance and foreign relations. In his autobiography, “Kisses for Breakfast,” he reflected: “I always wanted to do the right thing, to be helpful, to be good. What amazes me is that it all turned out so well. It was like a dream come true.”
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