Mercy’s new center to focus on maternal health and preventive care

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Baltimore’s Mercy Medical Center was founded in 1874 by the Sisters of Mercy, a religious institute of Catholic women whose aim has always been to aid the poor and the sick – initially, the poor and the sick in Ireland — and which has started health facilities across the globe.

The latest offering from Mercy Health Services (MHS) is in line with that centuries-old tradition.

Mercy’s Maternal Health and Preventive Care Center, the first phase of which opened in March, is located on the second floor of the MHS’ newly renovated Mead Building, on Calvert Street in Baltimore.

The center, said Dr. Wilma Rowe, Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer at Mercy, will provide access to “high-quality medical care with additional wrap-around services, including assistance with housing transportation, food insecurities, insurance navigation and health literacy.”

In addition, she said, the center will seek to identify and help modify social risk factors, including personal violence, homelessness, substance abuse, food insecurities and related issues, and promote wellness by managing and preventing chronic diseases like diabetes, obesity and cancer.

Since social determinants of health “have a major impact on the health, well-being and quality of life of our patient population,” added Dr. Robert Atlas, chairman of Mercy’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, “assessing these barriers helps to provide the best opportunities for patients in need,”

Mercy expects to serve some 5,000 maternity patients and 13,000 chronically ill patients per year at the center, said Dr. Andrea Limpuangthip, Mercy’s medical director for quality and patient safety.

“The goal is to address disparities in health care and provide a high quality of care for the most vulnerable patients,” she added. The patients served, she said, “are typically residents of Baltimore City, many of whom are people of color and some have low incomes and require socioeconomic support, such as assistance with transportation, medical supplies and prescriptions, or access to nutritious foods.”

The center is being opened in stages. By the end of 2024, said Christena Houston Senior Director of Operations for Mercy, all four floors of the building will be fully renovated, furnished and operational.

The first phase of the reopening included renovations to the fourth floor, which is now home to one of the largest OB/GYN practices in Baltimore, Metropolitan OB/GYN. The space includes exam rooms, laboratory services and ultrasound imaging.

The third floor, meanwhile, will open in June of this year, with two more OBGYN practices moving in.

The second floor is designed to give patient access to comprehensive chronic disease management and wrap-around services.  It will include a teaching kitchen, exam rooms, behavioral and palliative care consultation offices, infusion bays for intravenous medications and wellness programming to educate patients about healthy lifestyles, according to Limpuangthip.

The first floor, meanwhile, will house a fully equipped, state-of-the-art patient education center that will hold group pre-natal sessions, patient education, teleconferencing and education training for Mercy staff about “advanced techniques for serving vulnerable populations,” Rowe said.

At a recent blessing ceremony at the new center, Sister Helen Amos, executive chair of the MHS Board of Trustees, said the opening “marks another milestone in our re-commitment journey. We are celebrating the move of a first-class medical practice … into a first-class space that is suitable for supporting a broad approach to the well-being of mothers, their babies and their whole families.”

The center building is named for the late Dr. Joseph Anthony Mead Jr., former vice president for medical affairs and chief of the department of internal medicine at Mercy.

“Dr. Mead was an advocate of care for the underserved,” said Dr. David N. Maine, Mercy Health System’s president and CEO, noting that Mead played a key role in creating Health Care for the Homeless and the Baltimore Child Abuse Center.

“It is therefore appropriate,” he added,  “that the Mead Building house this new center, dedicated to serving the community’s most vulnerable.”