Oct. 28, 2009 (PR Newswire) --

WARSAW, Ind., Oct. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Zimmer Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: ZMH; SWX: ZMH) today announced that OMeGA Medical Grants Association LLC (OMeGA) has chosen its 2009 grant recipients. OMeGA is the newly formed third party administrator for graduate medical education to which Zimmer committed $2 million in funding for educational grants for the 2009-2010 academic year.

OMeGA received more than 250 applications for its fellowship and residency grants. This year, utilizing Zimmer's donation, OMeGA will fund 44 fellowship grants up to $75,000 each, representing 29% of programs requesting grants. Fellowship grants were allocated in all sub-specialty categories: Adult Reconstruction; Foot and Ankle; Hand Surgery; Oncology; Pediatrics; Shoulder and Elbow; Spine; Sports Medicine; and Trauma. OMeGA will also fund 21 residency grants up to $5,000 each at both academic institutions and community hospitals.

"High quality education programs are essential to encourage medical graduates to enter the field. We are proud to collaborate with OMeGA to support institutions and programs that will help assure improvements in patient care," said David Dvorak, President and Chief Executive Officer of Zimmer Holdings. "At Zimmer, we are committed to providing surgeons with outstanding training programs. Through our contributions to OMeGA, we are able to offer needed support to aspiring surgeons."

In November 2008, Zimmer became the founding supporter of OMeGA, an independent organization created by the American Orthopaedic Association (AOA). The OMeGA board and review committee members are free from conflicts of interest: they do not have financial interests in any orthopaedic medical device manufacturer (for the previous two years) or leadership roles (i.e., financial decision-making) in orthopaedic fellowship or residency programs and educational institutions.

OMeGA manages grant requests from educational institutions and programs. Grant recipients and allocations are determined by the independent board and review committees composed of sub-specialty experts. These surgeons evaluate education programs based on objective criteria which include, among others, goals and objectives of the program, program accreditation status, ratio of faculty to fellows, quality of resources and facilities and recent published papers by fellows.

"There was a need for an independent, conflict of interest free third party administrator of graduate medical education grants," said C. McCollister Evarts, MD, President of OMeGA Medical Grants Association. "This was OMeGA's charter grant cycle and we thank Zimmer for having the vision to support our ambitious new endeavor.