Major Gifts

Atlantic General Hospital Is Your Not-for-Profit Community Hospital.

A not-for-profit, community-based hospital:

is under local control
focuses on local concerns
has no private gain
provides access to care
gives its attention to community needs

As a not-for-profit, community-based hospital, Atlantic General Hospital and Health System holds itself accountable to the people we serve — Y.O.U.!

Our assets stay in the community
Our Board of Trustees is local and serves without pay. They balance financial decisions with community concerns.
There is no “private” profit – no individual or corporation makes any profit.
All income above expenses is used to improve the health of the community.
We provide a full spectrum of care – education, prevention, and treatment – that benefits all members of our community.

With donor support, we will:

Continue to provide mission-driven community education and health screenings, often free of charge, as well as other community benefits such as charity care. This has allowed our associates direct interaction with more than 26,975 community members in 2023 outside of traditional clinical settings at a value of nearly $25.9 million.
Provide state of the art cancer care treatment technology at the John H. 'Jack' Burbage, Jr. Regional Cancer Care Center, including the Paxman Scalp Cooling System treatment option to our patients. The damage that chemotherapy causes to the hair follicle can be alleviated by using the ground-breaking scalp cooling treatment, also known as the 'cold cap.' This works by reducing the temperature of the scalp by a few degrees immediately before, during and after the administration of chemotherapy, thus reducing hair loss. The RCCC is the first facility on the Delmarva Peninsula to offer this treatment option. Other technologies include the Merit Medical’s SCOUT wireless breast localization, where a tiny device smaller than a grain of rice is placed into the abnormal tissue of women and men preparing for a breast lumpectomy or excisional biopsy. This “reflector” can be placed any time prior to surgery and later be detected by the surgeon using radar waves. This flexibility allows for easier coordination of the placement procedure and the subsequent surgery, potentially resulting in fewer surgery delays. This is now available at Atlantic General Hospital’s Eunice Q. Sorin Women’s Diagnostic Center which is the only facility on the lower Eastern Shore of Maryland offering this service.
Provide new equipment and technology updates, such as the Mako robotic arm-assisted joint replacement surgery system, new ER stretchers and a body plethysmography chamber for pulmonary function testing. These updates allow Atlantic General Hospital & Health System to continue to improve patient treatment and care.
Continue the non-surgical component to the bariatric (weight loss) program offered at Atlantic General Bariatric Center. Nearly 70% of adults in our community are considered overweight or obese, which often leads to other chronic illnesses. This program provides these individuals with the treatment and ongoing support and monitoring necessary to safely reach their goals and achieve permanent weight loss.
Continue to grow our pediatric offerings. Atlantic General Health System has expanded its pediatric services, with four pediatricians offering services in a much larger space in the new Gudelsky Family Medical Center in Ocean Pines to better serve these specialty needs.
Increase and continue medical access through the opening of new facilities, such as the newly opened Gudelsky Family Medical Center in Ocean Pines, while also renovating current facilities on our main campus, including the John H. 'Jack' Burbage, Jr. Regional Cancer Care Center.

Where We’ve Been

Atlantic General Hospital’s previous five-year strategic plan helped us achieve many notable accomplishments, including:

Expanded women’s healthcare services. AGH built the comprehensive Women’s Health Center in West Ocean City, offering 3D mammography and other women’s imaging services in conjunction with gynecology consultations and treatments. A second 3D mammography unit was added at the Eunice Q. Sorin Women’s Diagnostic Center within the hospital, along with the addition of a multidisciplinary breast clinic at the John H. ‘Jack’ Burbage, Jr. Regional Cancer Care Center.
Inpatient redesign for improved clinical efficiencies and comfort of our patients and families.
Infectious disease surveillance program and technology which reduces the risk of hospital acquired infections and strengthens Atlantic General Hospital's antibiotic stewardship and quality improvement efforts.
Expanding the pool of primary care physicians and specialists in our region.

… And we’ve accomplished all this coupled with operational efficiencies and positive financial performance.

AGH's 2024-2026 Strategic Plan

The health care industry has undergone a “once in a lifetime” event with the Covid-19 pandemic. In the aftermath of this pandemic, new economic forces are reshaping our economy and highlighting the need to fundamentally alter the traditional American health care system.

It is a period of uncertainty around what the future of health care holds. As an organization, we must continue to adapt in our thinking, to innovate and to grow in our knowledge, to embrace new technologies, and to seek partnership opportunities that will create a more reliable and equitable health care system to adequately support the growing demands for our services.

Emerging from the pandemic, we face a new reality filled with growing and enduring labor shortages, a dramatically higher cost structure to run our core operations, growing discontent among consumers around access, equity and affordability, and the acceleration of new entrants into health care delivery that will fundamentally disrupt hospitals. Navigating these forces will require that our resources and assets be strategically aligned and coordinated. It requires a sharper focus and increased discipline for sound execution, with accountability shared equally throughout the organization.

As we learned during the pandemic, health care organizations have the capacity to innovate, evolve, transform, and meet the challenge of the moment when there is clarity of purpose - a commitment to the cause and a resolve to making things happen. With renewed leadership and a renewed plan looking forward, Atlantic General Hospital will meet the challenges of this moment and will propel itself to a new future, bright with opportunity and poised to have an impact.

Mission, Vision & Values

Our Mission
To deliver high quality, compassionate care that is convenient and close to home.

Our Vision
To create a healthier community with local access to high quality care.

Our Values
We become the leaders in caring through these values:

Compassion
Accountability
Respect
Excellence

The guiding principles behind our organization’s values are to demonstrate quality and safety excellence, while delivering exceptional service to our patients and their families. This means communicating effectively and acting with both urgency and personal accountability. To do this as a whole, we must engage our medical staff and associates in the common goal and apply principles of sound finance to sustain our core mission.

2024 – 2026 Atlantic General Hospital and Health System Strategic Plan

Atlantic General Hospital and Health System engaged in a strategic planning process to evaluate organizational priorities and align resources to ensure the accomplishment of identified critical objectives. Under the direction of the Board of Trustees, and with participation from Medical Staff, Leadership and the community, recommendations were set forth in regard to physician recruitment, programs, services, and building projects, ensuring that they are in accord with Atlantic General Hospital’s Vision and Mission.

As we plan for the future of Atlantic General Hospital and Health System, it is critical that we stay focused on our core mission and operate with fiscal discipline. The current economic environment, coupled with our most recent financial performance, suggests that the headwinds we face are strong, persistent and swirling. While implementing our 2024 Strategic Plan, we must exercise agile decision-making skills and have the courage to confront the challenges we face with an openness to debate our course, a willingness to engage in a healthy exchange of ideas, and be steadfast in the pursuit of our goals.

GOALS

Strengthen our core business
Optimize ambulatory care operations
Nurture a workforce strategy
Transform revenue and cost structure
Achieve high reliability and organizational excellence

STRATEGIES FOR ACHIEVING OUR GOALS

These strategies support the five strategic goals outlined previously to create a roadmap for Atlantic General Hospital and Health System through 2025.

STRENGTHEN OUR CORE BUSINESS

Provide improved operational efficiency and quality care in our core clinical services through a growth strategy in programs that are profitable to the organization.

Develop a structured provider recruitment plan and assimilation program
Increase market share in women’s health, orthopedics, imaging, and surgical services
Achieve increased Operating Room efficiencies and adherence to evidence-based standards of care
Strengthen care management programs to optimize patient throughput and efficiency
Leverage information technology to support our associates and our patients

OPTIMIZE AMBULATORY CARE OPERATIONS

Create a frictionless experience for patients seeking acute and non-acute access to care in our ambulatory practices, increasing patient throughput and reducing avoidable ED utilization.

Support our medical staff with effective, professional practice management services
Implement a new provider compensation model that aligns quality, access and patient experience, while improving productivity and reducing hospital subsidies
Improve the patient experience across AGHS medical practices
Ensure easy coordination of care across AGH services

NURTURE A WORKFORCE STRATEGY THAT SUPPORTS OUR MISSION

Our workforce strategy must position Atlantic General Hospital as a sought after employer by providing competitive compensation programs, professional growth opportunities, and healthy work environments.

Cultivate an environment of trust
Invest in our associates through competitive wage and benefit structure
Grow internal talent through career ladders and professional growth development
Expand workforce development partnerships with allied health care training programs
Hardwire positive first impression behaviors and communication skills for all AGH and AGHS associates
Implement new models of care that promote teamwork and a connection to purpose

TRANSFORM OUR REVENUE AND COST STRUCTURE

We must diversify our revenue streams and create operating efficiencies that allow the organization to generate operating margins sufficient to advance our mission.

Conduct evaluation of all service lines for efficiency and growth
Leverage the Premier group purchasing agreement
Build on our partnership with Chesapeake Health Care
Develop relationships with regional health systems to collaborate and plan services that complement individual strengths and support the growing health care needs of our service area
Continue to work with and support the AGH Foundation to raise funds for new and expanded services, programs, and technologies

STRIVE FOR HIGH RELIABILITY AND ORGANIZATIONAL EXCELLENCE

We must create an environment that embodies a culture of safety, promotes strong associate engagement, and pursues zero harm to our patients, while delivering exceptional patient experiences at every point of interaction with our health system.

Achieve top quartile performance in Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) for Inpatient, Outpatient, ED and Medical Offices

Achieve a 50% reduction in patient harm events year over year
Optimize Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA) and expand to the Emergency Department and Surgical Services
Achieve year-over-year improvement in employee retention
Reduce hospital readmission rate to <9.5%
Maximize AGH financial performance under quality-based incentive programs

For more information about our strategic initiatives or how you can support our efforts through a Major Gift, please call Jessica Jersey, Donor Relations Officer, at the Foundation office at (410) 641-9690 or email j ljersey@atlanticgeneral.org.