Choptank Community Health System has been recognized for its leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic with the Comptroller of Maryland’s 2020 William Donald Schaefer Helping People Award for Caroline County. Choptank Community Health received the recognition at a July 13 virtual presentation with Comptroller Peter Franchot.

The annual award recognizes individuals and organizations in each of the 23 counties and Baltimore City who best exemplify former Governor and Comptroller William Donald Schaefer’s unparalleled legacy of public service and selflessness, with awardees nominated by their peers.

Choptank Community Health CEO Sara Rich.

Choptank Health served as Caroline County’s primary testing center and was cited for the award as a valued partner in the battle to successfully contain the spread of COVID-19, while continuing to provide quality, integrated health care for residents in need.

“Choptank Health is a critical piece of the health care system,” says Choptank Community Health CEO Sara Rich. “We collaborate with hospitals, local and state governments, social, health, and business organizations in all our operations to improve health outcomes for medically vulnerable people.

Rich says Choptank Community Health’s mission of providing access to health care for all is at the heart of the nonprofit’s recent testing and vaccination clinics, where COVID-19 testing and vaccines were brought into our underserved, most at-risk communities through partnerships with local health and emergency response departments and other organizations.

Choptank Health worked with the Caroline County emergency operations center to actively share information and track the initial spread of COVID-19. They were the region’s first health care provider to offer drive-up and curbside COVID-19 testing for Choptank Health patients, and worked in partnership with County government and Caroline County Public Schools to provide community mass testing sites.

Choptank Health’s vaccination and testing outreach expanded into the region’s most hesitant and hard-to-reach communities, including those served by the Avalon Theatre’s Multi-Cultural Festival and through clinics with Dorchester County’s migrant seafood processing workers. Its outreach also brought vaccinations to other communities through events including those at Union United Methodist Church in St. Michaels, and Building African-American Minds in Easton, among others.

“We are grateful to work with Caroline County and all our partners throughout the pandemic,” said Choptank Community Health CEO Sara Rich. “We helped the County to develop detailed policies and response plans for things such as community-wide testing and how to handle exposures in vital government services like

Corrections, law enforcement, and EMS. We also expedited the delivery of health and safety guidance to our business community without having to wait for information from the CDC or State Department of Health.”

“Choptank Community Health truly embodies the qualities of service the William Donald Schaefer Helping People Award seeks to highlight,” said Caroline County Chief of Staff Sara Visintainer in her nomination of Choptank Health for the award. “The Choptank Health team dedicates every day to improving the communities in Caroline, Talbot, and Dorchester Counties. They provide high quality, affordable health and dental care to all. This is especially true for our most vulnerable populations because Choptank Health provides health and dental services regardless of a person’s ability to pay.”

Visintainer also said Choptank Health has created exceptionally valuable public-private partnerships with county governments, health departments, and school systems on the Mid-Shore to help better serve our communities.

Other Eastern Shore award recipients include Friends of Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, St. Michaels Community Center’s Executive Director Emerita Trish Payne, Kent Center Chief Morale Officer Larry Wilson, Court Appointed Special Advocate and The Beauty of Being Black Founder Sharon Robinson, Crisfield Arts Syndicate’s Shawna Kearsley, Fenix Youth Project’s Amber Greene, and Jesse Klump Memorial Fund’s Kim Klump.

“These recipients have positively impacted the most vulnerable members of their communities by feeding the hungry, protecting our natural resources and redirecting children to healthier, more fulfilling lives, and so much more,” Comptroller Franchot said. “They are heroes dedicated to lifting up those who need a helping hand.”

Choptank Community Health is one of 17 health centers in Maryland serving more than 377,000 individuals, including those without insurance or an ability to pay. Health Centers serve more than 28 million people nationwide and provide affordable, high quality, comprehensive primary care to people from throughout the local communities, including those underserved and uninsured.

Choptank Community Health System provides medical, dental, pediatric, and behavioral health services in Caroline, Dorchester, and Talbot counties, with a vision is to improve the health and well-being of people in the communities served by providing outstanding care experiences while being an exceptional place to work and make a difference, with more at choptankhealth.org.

While Kent County has had good reasons to celebrate the recent news that the Shore Regional Health’s Chestertown hospital would remain a full-service facility with its new designation as a “critical care” health center, there was another bit of news about the same time that might have been overlooked with all that excitement.

About the same time that the State of Maryland re-classified the town’s hospital, it was also announced that Choptank Community Health System had joined in a partnership with Shore Health to serve the needs of Kent County. Choptank might be a new name for locals, but it has been a highly respected health provider for the Mid-Shore for almost four decades.

Originally launched by concerned nurses and doctors in Caroline County in 1978, Choptank’s mission was to establish comprehensive primary health care services to all residents, regardless of one’s ability to pay. And since that time, the nonprofit health provider has grown to establish centers in Cambridge, Denton, Easton, Federalsburg, Goldsboro, and St. Michaels. And now Chestertown will be added to this list starting in 2022.

Not only has Choptank grown in the territory they cover, but in the last several years, they have significantly expanded their mission to include dental care, in-school health centers, and now behavioral health as well.

The Spy sat down with Sara Rich, Choptank’s CEO and president, at the White Swan Tavern the other day to learn more about Choptank and what they will be bringing to Kent County.

This video is approximately seven minutes in length. For more information about the Choptank Community Health System please go here.

It may take months, if not years, to truly understand the impact of the COVID pandemic on Talbot County but there is little doubt that Talbot Hospice has been on the front line of this crisis since it started in March of last year.

With now forty years of experience in end-of-life management, Talbot Hospice took on a massive undertaking on not only supporting those directly impacted by the deadly virus but had to quickly pivot to safely provide for those in its care and continue its grief services.

Very few people would be surprised that Talbot Hospice met this challenge, least of all Sheila Monahan, its current board president. Nonetheless, as the organization begins celebrating four decades of service to the community, it seemed like a very good time to talk to Sheila about how Hospice has fared during this difficult time.

The Spy sat down with Sheila a few weeks ago about the current work of Hospice as well as early preparations for its 40th birthday party planned for October.

This video is approximately four minutes in length. For more information about Talbot Hospice and how to volunteer please go here.

Perhaps one of the more significant events in Chestertown’s long history is expected to take place in a few weeks. While there is no official celebration planned to mark this important moment, this is when it is anticipated that the Health Services Cost Review Commission (HSCRC) will give the final approval of the town’s hospital becoming designated as a critical access facility in the eyes of the State of Maryland.

That might sound a bit bureaucratic, but it’s a huge deal.

This label determines that the UM Shore Medical Center at Chestertown is so rural, so remote, that it can operate as a full-service hospital even if the costs of running the facility could be above current standards for similar medical facilities in Maryland.

The Spy spoke to Shore Regional Health’s CEO Ken Kozel last week about this remarkable moment. As someone who has played a leading role for more than a decade with Chestertown’s hospital and the debate on its future, Ken notes that this historic phase for health care that Chestertown, and more broadly, Kent County and northern Queen Anne’s County, will be entering. He also talks about the five-year process that this new designation kicks off, including intensive community engagement. All to help determine precisely what a critical access hospital does, since Chestertown will be the first of its kind in the State.

This video is approximately six minutes in length. For more information about Shore Regional Health please go here.

Many of a certain age might recall the limited health services that were available in schools back in the day and that all other health-related issues were in the hands of family physicians or local health centers outside the classroom environment.

But like the health field in general, there have been significant changes in how healthcare is provided nowadays to kids. In fact, there is a new partnership that has developed between the school nurse model and in-school health centers that would not be that dissimilar to what you might find in neighborhood urgent care clinics.

A leader on the mid- shore providing this change is Choptank Health with school programs in all five counties. From Kent to Dorchester, Choptank is working with every school district to provide a range of health services to students right at their school or in their communities, which for many kids might be the only way they receive medical or dental care in any given year.

The Spy sat down with Sara Rich, CEO of Choptank Health, and her colleague, Chrissy Bartz, who runs its community-based programs, last week on how essential healthcare is now more successfully reaching some of our community’s most needy children and their well-being.

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about Choptank Health please go here.