News

It’s Back-to-School Time and Our Adolescent Medicine Team is Ready!

Two years ago, Mercy launched a new program to provide healthcare for adolescents, aged 13-17. Mercy now serves more than 300 youth as primary provider, or as a secondary provider supporting health and wellness centers at five local schools (Watkins Mill, Gaithersburg and Seneca Valley high schools, and Gaithersburg and Summit Hall Elementary schools). Our adolescent patients are primarily immigrants who face many of the same challenges as our adult patients including poverty, food insecurity and lack of access to healthy foods.

The partnership with the schools benefits both patients and the schools. Mercy recently cared for a student referred to us because of a painful toe infection that the school nursing staff did not feel comfortable handling. One of our specialists treated the patient and trained the nurse practitioner at the school in how provide treatment, increasing their capacity to provide future care.

Our medical practitioners, many of whom are volunteers, provide age appropriate health screenings and recommended vaccines like the HPV vaccine.

 “Prevention is an important part of what we do,”

explains Richard Ricciardi, PhD, CRNP, a volunteer medical provider working with our youth patients. “One of the key things we can do at Mercy is to identify and address health issues in adolescence so we can prevent them from becoming chronic conditions in the future.”

Mental health support is a focus of medical visits as well. Like teens across our community, many of our adolescents need mental health services, including access to therapists and medications. This support is especially critical for those patients who experienced severe trauma in childhood or are experiencing ongoing stress.

Mercy remains committed to reducing barriers to healthcare, for youth and adults.

“As we work with our youth population, we learn more about their specific health needs,” explains Mark Foraker, president and CEO of Mercy. “We will also be looking see what gaps in existing services exist that Mercy may be able to fill.”

Mercy Health Clinic to Receive Good Neighbor Award from Montgomery Community Media

Mercy Health Clinic is honored to be a recipient of the 2022 EPIC Montgomery County Good Neighbor Award from Montgomery Community Media. Mercy and the other honorees will receive their awards at MCM’s Party with a Purpose on November 30.

Per the MCM press release: “Mercy Health Clinic was chosen because of its remarkable contributions toward improving the quality of life of the residents of Montgomery Community … We share your commitment to reducing health disparities for our county’s residents … The incredible work your staff and volunteers are doing is critical to ensuring a more equitable and healthier Montgomery County for all.”

Montgomery Community Media is a premier local non-profit news outlet exclusively reporting on the issues and stories that matter to Montgomery County residents, winning national and local recognition for their work, including more than ten Emmy awards.

For more information on the award and the event, or to purchase tickets, visit MCM’s website.

Training the next generation of nurses

This fall, Mercy is hosting nursing students from The Catholic University of America for their clinical rotations. Under the supervision of a faculty practitioner from CUA, students work with Mercy staff seeing patients and assisting in the pharmacy. They also supported our weekly walk-in flu clinic to help ensure our patients are vaccinated.

The students appreciated this opportunity.

“We all really enjoyed our time working at Mercy Clinic. We were lucky enough to learn from many of the providers and observe their patient interactions as well as participate in patient care. Overall, Mercy Clinic is an amazing facility that offers care to many individuals who would otherwise not have the opportunity or the resources to receive care from a healthcare provider.”

We wish them well as they finish their degrees and pursue careers in nursing! Our communities will benefit from their passion and training.

Mercy’s Pharmacy Provides Access To Medications

Did you know that Mercy has an on-site pharmacy that provides patients with prescription medications – free of charge?  

Mercy’s pharmacy team dispenses more than $1.2 million in donated pharmaceuticals to our patients each year. For many patients, even paying a few dollars for medications presents a barrier to treatment. Often, patients who are unable to afford their medications cut back on dosage or skip doses altogether. 

We have a small pharmacy staff, supported by a dedicated volunteer corps, many of whom have volunteered with Mercy for many years. Our volunteers come to us from the FDA, the US Uniform Health Services and other government partners.

Our team also manages our vaccine program, including flu vaccines. Mercy is currently offering weekly flu clinics throughout October at our facility to make sure our patients are vaccinated.

Over 80% of our patients receive medications from our pharmacy, including asthma inhalers and medications to treat diabetes and high blood pressure. Some Mercy patients have medical conditions that require medications that would be prohibitively expensive to access. In these cases, our pharmacy team works directly with the manufacturers of those medications in order to provide them for patients.

Mercy’s pharmacy program was a lifeline for our patients during the pandemic. While the Clinic was providing healthcare primarily via telemedicine, our pharmacy team continued dispensing medications via curbside pickup.

Thank you to our amazing pharmacy team!

New Partnership Provides Food from Local Farms to Mercy Patients

This summer, Mercy is excited to be working with a new local nonprofit, Community FarmShare, to pilot a Food Is Medicine program.  This innovative program, which started in mid-May, delivers fresh produce from local farms directly to 40 Mercy patients with diabetes, who also receive recipes for using the produce provided. Patients received food deliveries weekly for the first 12 weeks of the summer. The program is so successful, nearly all of our current program participants signed up to continue for the second 12 weeks of food delivery. 

“It’s a very good program,” explains Manuel Hernandez, nutritionist at Mercy who also provides one-on-one nutrition counseling with these patients. “We are seeing improved health outcomes for our patients, and access to fresh, healthy food is helping the whole family eat better.”

Manuel also noted that the produce offered includes foods that are new to our patients. “People are trying these new foods and finding out that they like them. And now they are including more fruits and vegetables in their meals.”

The availability of this local produce is especially important for low-income families who often cannot afford fresh fruits and vegetables. Andres, a current Mercy patient, told us he appreciates having access to “fresh foods that are sometimes expensive to buy.” 

Many thanks to Jenny Freeman, founder of Community FarmShare, for her energy and enthusiasm, and for connecting our patients to fresh, locally grown food! For more information about their program, visit the Community FarmShare website 

Mercy Medical Volunteers Receive 2022 Montgomery Serves Award as Volunteer Group of the Year!

The Montgomery Serves Awards recognize those who have “demonstrated remarkable commitment to service and volunteerism in our community, earning them Montgomery County’s highest recognition for their contributions.”

We couldn’t agree more!

Recent Milestones

• September 2016: Mercy became eligible to see patients who have Maryland Medicaid and are covered by two managed care organizations, Amerigroup and Maryland Physician’s Care.
• May 2019: Mercy recognized by NCQA (National Commission for Quality Assurance) as a Patient-Centered Medical Home.
• September 2019: Mercy became part of the Community Integrated Network of Adventist Healthcare, allowing for collaborative partnerships with other network providers, data sharing, and increased referrals of new Medicaid patients.
• May 2020: Mercy approved to see patients with a CareFirst health plan subsidized through Affordable Care Act.
• October 3, 2020: Mercy recognized 20 years of service to our community. The pandemic has underscored the importance of our founding mission: to provide high quality healthcare for those who need it.
• June 2021: Mercy launched our current strategic plan in February 2020, with a key priority of adding adolescent patients (ages 13-17). Despite the pandemic we focused on capacity building to add adolescent patients to our practice, and began seeing youth in June 2021.