The Osteopathic Heritage Foundations’ roots were first established in the 1960s with the incorporation of the Doctors Hospital Foundation, a supporting organization of Doctors Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Following the 1998 asset sale of Doctors’ facilities in Columbus and Nelsonville, the Foundations adopted the mission to improve the health and quality of life in their communities. The Osteopathic Heritage Foundations name was selected to demonstrate their continued commitment to the osteopathic medical profession and their osteopathic heritage.

Today, two private, non-profit foundations comprise the Osteopathic Heritage Foundations. They share a common mission and vision, while maintaining separate boards and funding concentration:

• The Osteopathic Heritage Foundation supports community health and quality of life – primarily in central Ohio – as well as osteopathic medical education and research throughout the nation.
• The Osteopathic Heritage Foundation of Nelsonville directs its funding support primarily to improving community health and quality of life in southeastern Ohio.

While serving statewide and national interests, the Foundations’ philanthropic activities are concentrated primarily in these Ohio counties:

The Osteopathic Heritage Foundation’s philanthropic activities related to osteopathic medical education and research cover a broader geographic area, focusing primarily on the nation’s colleges of osteopathic medicine:

The Osteopathic Heritage

The Foundations remain committed to the philosophy and principles of osteopathic medicine and osteopathic health care.

The osteopathic philosophy: Improving health and quality of life

Health is an essential part of a person's quality of life, yet the physical body cannot be separated from the whole of life. By viewing health in social, environmental, family and individual terms, osteopathic physicians seek to enhance each person's sense of well-being and quality of life.

Osteopathic medicine: Treating each individual as a whole person

In the 1870s Dr. Andrew Taylor Still felt physicians were focusing more on disease treatment than on health of the whole person. Dr. Still proposed the key principles of osteopathic medicine:

• Disease prevention
  Physicians should help maintain or restore the dynamic balance between the body's structure and its functions.
• Health promotion
  The body is capable of self-regulation, self-healing and self-maintenance.
• Interrelationship and interdependence of structure and function
  Alterations in the body's structure (e.g., by surgery or manipulative medicine) also affect its function. Likewise, changes in the body's function (e.g., through medications) can also affect its structure.
• Holistic medicine
  The body is a unit, with its structure and functions operating as a whole, rather than as separate systems