Four boundaries hold at Sevadar Foundation: money does not buy information, money does not buy a finding, the divisions’ protected information does not flow to the foundation, and publishing is not prescribing.
Four walls, described here because a nonprofit that does not describe them usually does not have them. They are walls rather than values: each one is something that cannot happen here, and none of them is ours to waive.
Wall one: money does not buy information
No supporter, at any level, gets access to what CareGuard collects or what Valor Medica knows about a patient. This is not a policy the foundation could waive if it wanted to. CareGuard’s patient safety work product is protected by federal statute; Valor Medica’s clinical information is protected health information. Neither is available as a benefit of supporting the foundation.
This matters most in the case a nonprofit rarely writes down: a facility owner, or someone with an interest in a facility, who becomes a supporter. The answer is the same as for anyone else, and the reason it is the same is that it is federal law rather than our discretion.
Wall two: money does not buy a finding
CareGuard reviews what it reviews. A supporter cannot commission a favorable review, suppress an unfavorable one, or direct attention toward or away from a particular facility. If that were purchasable, the entire program would be worthless — and a Patient Safety Organization’s value rests on it not being purchasable.
Wall three: divisions do not flow to the foundation
It would be convenient for a parent organization to read everything its divisions hold. It cannot. Protected information stays inside the division that collected it. What travels upward is whether a division is doing what it says it does, not the content of what it found. How the divisions relate →
Wall four: publishing is not prescribing
Dwaraa publishes a way of reading a medication list. It does not write on the list. No division of this foundation prescribes, deprescribes, diagnoses or treats, and no quantity of published evidence converts into authority over what a particular person takes. That decision stays with the patient and the prescriber who has the whole record in front of them — including in the cases where we are confident we know what it should be. The framework →
The doorway
Four walls and no door is a vault. The fourth division is named for the door: ਦੁਆਰਾ, dwaraa, means “through” or “by way of” — from dwar, a door or gateway. It names the opening rather than the room. Where the names come from →
The walls are what make the doorway usable. A family member, a nursing assistant, a prescriber or a facility owner can bring a question through it and know what cannot happen to it on the other side: it cannot be bought, it cannot be traded upward, and it cannot come back as an order nobody agreed to. Four walls, one way in, and something safe on the other side of it.
What a supporter does get
- A straight answer about where money would go and what it would change.
- A receipt and the deductibility statement, because Sevadar Foundation Inc. is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, EIN 93-2840861. Contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.
- The right to ask a hard question and get an honest answer, including “we do not know yet.”
- Notice if a restricted gift cannot be used as restricted — before it is spent, not after. Questions about giving →
Conflicts we can name now
- The founder funds the organization he directs. That is the central concentration and this site states it on every relevant page rather than burying it. How we are funded.
- The founder is a practicing physician. His clinical practice is separate from this foundation. The foundation does not refer to it, market it, or receive anything from it. About the founder.
- The founder holds a role at a partner organization. He is Chief Medical Officer of Valor Villages Inc., a separate 501(c)(3); Valor Medica, a division of this foundation, is described as its medical arm. Two organizations, two EINs, one person overlapping. The distinction.
Questions
Does Sevadar Foundation accept money from nursing home operators?
The question a reader is really asking is whether a facility could buy a clean review, and the answer is no — for the reason in wall two above. Any relationship between a PSO and a provider it also contracts with is subject to federal disclosure requirements, which is a good example of a rule that exists precisely because the conflict is foreseeable. Read more: What a Patient Safety Organization actually does.
Does the foundation pay the founder?
The asset lock in the articles prohibits distributing the corporation’s assets to a private person, and compensation arrangements for officers of an exempt organization are reportable on the annual return. Annual filings.
Can I earmark a gift for a single division?
Ask first. A restriction the foundation cannot honor is worse for both sides than a conversation beforehand. Read more: Restricted gifts, and why we ask first.