Featured Community Partnerships

• CROC - Children’s Regional Oral Health Consortium - Eastern Shore AHEC award-winning program was created in 2006 to address the needs of the communities in the Eastern Shore, where considerable oral health disparities remain, especially among the low-income and pediatric populations. The program works toward reducing, through education, the tooth decay in toddlers and very young children of the Eastern Shore.  CROC is a federal Health Resources and Services Administration funded program of the Eastern Shore Health Education Center. The program works toward reducing, through education, the tooth decay in toddlers and very young children of the Eastern Shore.  Once the children’s primary health care personnel and caregivers understand that tooth decay is the most common chronic infection of childhood and the root cause is a specific type of bacteria, such as Strep Mutans, which is able to change sugar and starch in the diet into powerful acids that soften tooth enamel, there is great opportunity to both prevent new cases of early childhood tooth decay, as well as, prevent recurring decay in children who have had decay treated in the past. The three-year program ended in April 2009, but due to its success, the partners managed to get another three-year grant to extend it to the Upper Shore.

• ECHO - Exploring Careers in Health Occupations is a Western Maryland AHEC program designed to recruit tomorrow's health professionals today. Its purpose is to provide high school students with educational support and job training skills to nurture an interest in health careers. Through educational programs in area schools, ECHO recruits high school students to attend its one-week, residential health professions programs. Participants spend a week living in a university residence hall where they are introduced to a wide variety of health careers by going behind the scenes of various healthcare settings and participating in hands-on, job-related experiences. Health professionals interact with students to teach them about health careers and the educational requirements that lead to professional certifications or college degrees. Students also receive information on what they can do to prepare for these careers. Students who complete this one week program are invited to participate in a more in-depth look at health careers during a week-long session the following summer. During the third summer, students are linked with area health care providers for a job shadowing experience.

• MRHA – Maryland Rural Health Association - The University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) was a founding member of the Maryland Rural Health Association (MRHA) when it began in 1995.  Since that time, a University employee has continuously served on the MRHA Board of Directors and has served as MRHA Secretary for four successive terms.  UMSOM and its Office of Policy and Planning (OPP) have played a unique role along with the MRHA in furthering the cause of Internet and broadband connection for rural areas in Maryland. An OPP employee first staffed Maryland’s State Office of Rural Health and in the six years while in that position, worked with the MRHA, UMSOM, and OPP to provide live Internet connection and videoconferencing at seven of the annual State Rural Health Conferences. UMSOM and OPP worked with the MRHA and its Maryland AHEC Program Office in planning and providing live Internet connection, Town Hall meetings with connection to several remote areas, and Internet classes, e.g., PubMed and Lonesome Doc for the Rural Health Conferences.  This work by UMSOM and OPP with the MRHA helped to assure Internet access to areas least likely to have those connections, and supported MRHA’s mission of ensuring quality health care for all rural Marylanders.

• The Maryland Region Community Network Program (CNP) is a National Health Institutes (NIH) funded program, grant number NCI U01 CA 144650, designed to reach communities and populations that experience a disproportionate share of the cancer burden: African Americans, American Indians/Alaska Natives, Hawaiian Natives and other Pacific Islanders, Asians, Hispanics/Latinos, and underserved rural populations. The overall goal of the program is to significantly improve access to - and utilization of - beneficial cancer interventions and treatments in communities experiencing cancer health disparities in order to reduce these disparities.

• MPACT – Maryland Program Advancing Clinical Trials is a unique program designed to increase community awareness about the importance of clinical trials, the need for diverse and underserved community research participation and their roles in addressing health disparities. The purpose of the program is to promote awareness and education, increase willingness to participate and encourage informed decision-making by the patient, their health professionals, families and communities.