Destiny-Simone Ramjohn, PhD, was appointed earlier this summer by Governor Hogan to serve as a CHRC Commissioner. In addition to serving on the CHRC, Dr. Ramjohn is Vice President of Community Health & Social Impact with CareFirst, the largest health care insurer in the Mid-Atlantic region serving 3.3 million members. In this role, Dr. Ramjohn leads philanthropic giving and community engagement where people live, work, play, and seek care to drive measurable impact on health.

Creating conditions that promote health equity are at the core of Dr. Ramjohn's personal and professional mission. Her work examines the role that anchor institutions, such as academic institutions and health systems, may play in generating economic and health impacts that minimize inequities, especially jobs, added years of life from better health, reduced use of emergency departments for primary care, and more. Prior to joining CareFirst, Dr. Ramjohn spent five years with Kaiser Permanente as Director of Community Health developing measurement, evaluation, and high-impact strategies for the financial, material, and human resource investments across the Mid-Atlantic region that directly address the social determinants of health and promote health equity.

Dr. Ramjohn is a strategic disruptor and innovative change agent, enthusiastically implementing new ideas to ensure that large health systems' policies, programs, and practices are aligned with an equity agenda. She discussed her strategies for success with this ambitious agenda in her TEDx talk "From Uprising to Rising Up: Lessons in Community Engagement and Total Health."

Dr. Ramjohn's research is guided by a strong desire to advance health equity using authentically inclusive, empowering, and evidence-based techniques to bring our nation's most vulnerable from the margins of our society to the center of dialogue, advocacy, and power. She earned her doctorate in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University.

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Maulik Joshi, DrPH, was appointed earlier this month by Governor Hogan to serve as a CHRC Commissioner.  Dr. Joshi is the President and CEO of Meritus Health, a regional health system serving western Maryland, southern Pennsylvania and the eastern panhandle of West Virginia. Meritus Health has more than 3,000 employees and 500 medical staff with a mission to improve the health status of the region. Previously, Dr. Joshi was the COO and Executive Vice President at the Anne Arundel Health System. Prior to this position, Dr. Joshi was at the American Hospital Association as Associate Executive Vice President and President of the Health Research and Educational Trust. Dr. Joshi has a Doctorate in Public Health and a Master's degree in Health Services Administration from the University of Michigan.

 

Dr. Joshi has published numerous articles, including two recent pieces, "Hundreds of Days of Action as a Start to Address Hundreds of Years of Inequity," (click here) and "You Need a Herd for Herd Immunity," (click here) which were published in the NEJM Catalyst earlier this month. 

In addition, Dr. Joshi has co-edited "The Healthcare Quality Book: Vision, Strategy and Tools" (4th edition published in April 2019) and co-authored "Healthcare Transformation: A Guide for the Hospital Board Member and Leading Healthcare."

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The Lower Shore Clinic Launches Healthy Foods  

Program "Lettuce continue
to beet food waste in our
communities!"

Earlier this spring, the Lower Shore Clinic received a two-year grant from the CHRC to support its Healthy Foods Program. The goals of the program are to increase member access to fresh produce, provide nutritional education, teach cooking skills and positively impact members' A1Cs all while eliminating food waste in our community.

 

The Lower Shore Clinic is an integrated primary care and behavioral health provider based in Wicomico County and has received several grants from the CHRC to expand access to primary and behavioral health treatment services for individuals with serious and persistent mental illness and other chronic illnesses including diabetes.

 

The grant to support the Healthy Foods Program was one of 30 grants totaling $6.5 million awarded by the CHRC last year. These grants will expand access to essential health services for vulnerable populations; promote integrated behavioral health services and substance use treatment services; and address food insecurity and diabetes.  

 

Following the launch of the Healthy Foods Program earlier this summer, the Lower Shore Clinic has identified more than 100 members with diabetes to receive services and participate in the program. The Lower Shore Clinic has dedicated staff to building relationships with local vendors, picking up donated produce and processing it to distribute to our members. The Lower Shore Clinic has already collected more than one ton of vegetables for free in the past two weeks that would have been in the landfill. The motto for the Healthy Foods Program is, "Lettuce continue to beet food waste in our communities!" 

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