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Wicomico health officials outline AHEAD/CMS waiver measures; local baselines and programs highlighted
Summary
Wicomico County Health Officer Matthew McConaughey and Epidemiologist Christina Gray briefed the council on Maryland's AHEAD CMS waiver and six population-health measures; they reported county baselines, disparities, and local programs (CHIP, SWIFT mobile health) and discussed Rural Health Transformation Program funding opportunities.
Matthew McConaughey, Wicomico County Health Officer, opened the board of health briefing with a summary of recent communicable disease monitoring and then introduced Christina Gray, director of planning & assessment and county epidemiologist, who presented on the state's AHEAD waiver reporting requirements. "CMS required Maryland to select six population-health measures to monitor over the next 10-year cycle," Gray said, then walked the council through the six measures: self-reported health status, colorectal cancer screening, hemoglobin A1C control for people with diabetes, 7- and 30-day follow-up after behavioral-health hospitalization, all-cause unplanned readmissions, and food insecurity.
Gray presented local baselines: 17.7% of Wicomico adults reported fair or poor health, colorectal screening at 47% of eligible residents, and 43% of diabetic residents in the A1C risk group showed poor control (a second-best value in state comparisons for that measure). She highlighted disparities: Hispanic adults reported fair/poor health at approximately 25% in the county data, and follow-up after mental-health hospitalization was lower for Hispanic and Black non-Hispanic patients. "We are almost at CMS's 30-day follow-up target," Gray said, "but there's work to do for the 7-day follow-up metric."
Staff tied those metrics to local initiatives: the county's Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP), expansion of colorectal-screening outreach (including in-home Cologuard kits), and the SWIFT mobile integrated-care team (in partnership with TidalHealth and Salisbury Fire Department). Gray also described the state Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) funding awarded to Maryland and how the county could leverage allocated funds for workforce development, mobile health expansion and food-security programs.
Council members asked about private-sector engagement, data sources (BRFSS and all-payer claims), and how local programs could be used to meet targets. Gray said efforts to expand community-health workers, CRISP electronic-referral integration and bilingual programming (including Haitian Creole) are already part of the county's strategy to address disparities.
The board of health briefing concluded with staff noting permitting compliance and environmental-health permitting data and with council appreciation for the health department's data-driven approach to planning and opportunities under federal and state funding streams.
