March 28, 2024

Lexington Park Gets Funding for Health Care Partnership

Posted by Community Development Corporation, MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital, Del. John Bohanan and Walden Behavioral Health

Medstar - Walden - Health Enterprise ZoneChristine Wray, CEO of MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital attended Lt. Governor Anthony G. Brown’s announcement last week designating  Greater Lexington Park one of  Maryland’s first Health Enterprise Zones (HEZ).

Ms. Wray was joined at the ceremony by  Joan Gelrud also of MedStar St. Mary’s,  CEO Kathleen O’Brien of Walden Behavioral Services, Del. John L. Bohanan, St. Mary’s Health Officer Dr. Meenakshi G. Brewster and Commissioner Jack Russell.

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Lexington Park will receive a range of incentives, benefits, and grant funding to address unacceptable and persistent health disparities.

The four-year pilot program with an annual $4 million budget aims to reduce health disparities among populations and geographic areas by improving care access, reducing health care costs and hospital admissions .

Lexington Park was one of five pilot projects selected. Nineteen coalitions submitted proposals in fall 2012.

The proposal for Greater Lexington Park seeks to improve public health outcomes in the Lexington Park, Great Mills, and Park Hall communities of St. Mary’s County, areas experiencing a severe shortage of primary care physicians.

The Health Enterprise Zone (HEZ) winning proposal from Lexington Park will dovetail with health facilities development projects in the area which includes a new community health care center. The HEZ funding is anticipated to draw five new primary care practitioners, one psychiatrist, and two licensed social workers in to the area.  Innovative strategies to make sure health care is received by those in need will include the development of a “health care transportation route” to address barriers to accessing health care in this rural area of the state.

Simultaneously Cherry Cove Builders are working to redevelopment Lord Calvert Mobile Home Park on Great Mills Road. In addition to 127 single-family homes and 500 apartments on 79 acres at the corner of Great Mills and Chancellors Run Roads, the East Run development venture seeks to include a 40,000 square foot building at the front of the development to house some of the new medical services the HEZ anticipates drawing into the area.

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