Shore Regional Health outlines expansion, local investments and rural challenges for Kent County

Zach Royston, vice president of rural health care transformation and executive director of Shore Medical Center at Chestertown, told the Kent County Economic and Tourism Development Commission that Shore Regional Health and the University of Maryland Medical System will maintain local services while expanding regional specialty capacity.

"This is National Healthcare Heroes Week. So if you see a health care provider in the community, thank them for what they do," Royston said, opening his presentation on trends, capacity and local investments.

Royston said Shore Regional Health serves a five-county Mid-Shore region covering about 2,000 square miles and roughly 75,000 people. He described the system as part of the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) hub-and-spoke model: Chestertown provides emergency, inpatient and limited surgical care while more complex cases are referred to the regional hospital in Easton and, when needed, to quaternary services in Baltimore.

The system broke ground in July on a new Regional Medical Center on Route 50 in Easton, Royston said. Site work, including a Route 662 reroute, is complete; foundation pouring is planned within weeks and vertical steel is expected by fall. The new campus will sit on about 430 acres and include a six-story hospital tower and a two-story medical services building. Royston said the project is on track for an opening in July 2028 and will increase the system’s total inpatient rooms by about 25. The Maryland Health Care Commission authorized the bed count through the state certificate-of-need process, he said.

Locally, Shore Medical Center at Chestertown is receiving capital updates: a donated, state-of-the-art MRI funded by the Chester River Hospital Foundation and further donations (including funds from the Pink Polar Bear golf tournament) will add a breast coil to support MRI breast imaging. Royston said the MRI replacement is scheduled to finish in late summer or early fall.

Royston described Chestertown as a rurally designated hospital with an emergency department, a medical–surgical inpatient unit and same-day or 23-hour surgical capability. The Chestertown site staffs for 15 inpatient beds but reports an average daily census of roughly six patients; the site cannot staff some higher-acuity monitoring (telemetry) now, he said. He added that Easton will move to all-private rooms and that all rooms in the new Easton hospital will be telemetry‑equipped, reducing a current bottleneck for inpatient placement.

Royston highlighted several community-facing programs: (1) Shore Community Outreach teams that deliver care in patients’ homes; (2) a community nurse educator providing free caregiver and CPR classes; (3) safe-sitter classes for teenagers; and (4) an age‑friendly initiative that screens older inpatients for the “4Ms” (what matters, medication, mentation and mobility). He said the hospital is working to limit unnecessary NPO orders for older patients because nutrition supports recovery.

Royston also described operational interventions. The Chester River Hospital Foundation funded a pilot dedicated ambulance in Chestertown to shorten transfer waits. He said a six‑month study showed average transfer waits before the pilot of about eight hours; with the dedicated ambulance that average dropped to roughly 90 minutes.

On payers and financial risk, Royston said Medicare is the system’s largest payer and that Medicaid represents a growing share at Chestertown: about 7.9 percent of patient visits in 2024, rising toward 13 percent annualized in FY2025. He warned that Medicaid cuts would disproportionally affect this service area and could push uninsured patients into emergency care, increasing system strain.

Royston said Shore Regional Health has national recognition — Becker’s Healthcare included the group among top 100 community hospitals — and urged commission members to act as community ambassadors for keeping a visible, local health‑care footprint. He invited meetings with civic groups and said he would provide detail packets and follow up on questions about local deliveries, pediatric counts and other local statistics.

Questions from commission members covered pediatric bed purpose (isolation for infectious children), inpatient boarding and telemetry constraints, measures for tracking community wellness (County Health Rankings, vaccination and diabetes program enrollment) and how services now located in Easton will transition as the new regional campus opens. Royston said practices on other Easton campuses will remain in place for now; the Memorial Hospital of Easton campus has been retained with CBRE handling a prospective purchaser search.

Royston closed by asking the commission to help spread the message that UMMS and Shore Regional Health are committed to maintaining and growing services for Kent and northern Queen Anne’s counties.

Ending: Royston offered to return for additional discussion and to provide requested data on ED visit counts, transfer volumes and pediatric activity.