Atlantic General Medical Center celebrated its grand opening last week at the new location near the intersection of Route 50 and Old Bridge Road in West Ocean City. The providers located in the office are Dr. Munna Garg, internal medicine and pediatrics; Dr. Danielle Orr, family medicine; Dr. Anita Pascucci, pediatrics; and Dr. Laura M. Stokes, pediatrics. Above hospital leadership and foundation members are pictured with the providers as well as representatives from the Ocean City and Ocean Pines chambers. Photo by Jeanette Deskiewicz
New Medical Center Opening Celebrated
BERLIN – Atlantic General Hospital and Health System held a grand opening and ribbon cutting at Atlantic General Medical Center in West Ocean City on Thursday.
The Atlantic General Medical Center is home to the offices of Munna Garg, M.D., a specialist in internal medicine and pediatrics, Danielle Orr, M.D., a family practitioner, and pediatricians Anita Pascucci, D.O, and Laura Stokes, D.O.
“We’re thrilled to have providers offering family medicine and pediatric care in the growing West Ocean City area,” said Jim Brannon, vice president of professional services at Atlantic General Hospital. “The building is in an easily accessible location for the families who live here.”
All the physicians are accepting new patients. Stokes is offering same-day appointments for new patients. Appointments can be made by calling the offices at 443-728-1004 for Pascucci and Stokes or 410-390-3341 for Garg and Orr.
Agent Joins Firm
OCEAN PINES — Janet Morse has recently joined Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty as a sales professional, according to Sharon Curtiss, branch manager for Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty in Ocean Pines.
Morse will concentrate on residential real estate sales as a member of The O’Hare Team. She was previously a REALTOR® in upstate New York prior to relocating to Ocean Pines in 1997 and was involved in relocation of major corporations and was Realtor® Associate of the Year and Realtor® of the Year.
She has been actively involved in the community in many volunteer organizations including the Atlantic General Hospital Auxiliary Board Past President, helped open the Atlantic General Hospital Thrift Shop, chaired five concerts of the internationally known “The Fabulous Three Tenors and a Diva,” co-chaired the 10th Anniversary Celebration of the Worcester County Veterans Memorial, Ocean Pines Election Committee, Republican Women of Worcester County chaplain, Maryland Association of Hospital Auxiliaries Past Chair of Thrift Shops and more.
“Janet shares Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty’s commitment to quality and customer service,” said Curtiss. “She is exactly the type of sales professional we are seeking, as we continue to grow the company, and increase our presence in the local community.”
Morse added, “Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty’s focus on the customer and its goal to provide the best products and services for its sales professionals are what make affiliating with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty the best choice possible.”
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty, which is independently owned and operated, became a member of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices brokerage network, operated by HSF Affiliates LLC, in 2014. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices PenFed Realty’s was founded in September 2014. Since that time it has earned a host of honors, including top volume brokerage in the Ocean Pines market area.
Hall Of Fame Induction
OCEAN CITY — Grotto Pizza has been inducted into the Pizza Hall of Fame, which celebrates America’s oldest and most beloved pizza restaurants.
Created by PMQ Pizza Magazine, the pizza industry’s No. 1 trade publication, the Pizza Hall of Fame, located at www.PizzaHallofFame.com, pays tribute to the rich cultural history of American pizza and honors the perennially popular U.S. pizzerias that been in business for 50 years or longer.
Grotto Pizza is the vision and lifelong project of owner Dominick Pulieri. When asked what the Pizza Hall of Fame honor means to him he said “It is an amazing recognition for us and very humbling. This honor is not just mine, but shared with many Grotto Pizza team members that have worked for Grotto Pizza over the past 55 years.
Conceptually, the Pizza Hall of Fame has existed for nearly 10 years, since PMQ Publisher Steve Green inducted Lombardi’s Pizza in New York on Nov. 1, 2005. The Pizza Hall of Fame website was launched in October 2014 as part of National Pizza Month. All inductees have been featured in the “Pizza Hall of Fame” section (formerly called “Time Capsule”) of PMQ’s print magazine. Grotto Pizza was featured in the January/February issue of 2014.
“Pizza is such an integral part of the American experience,” Green said. “We wanted to commemorate its role in our culture. Every pizzeria in the Pizza Hall of Fame — and each one that will be inducted in the future — is a local landmark. These pizzerias are more than restaurants — they are institutions in their communities.”
“It’s all about the customer,” Pulieri said. “Without them we wouldn’t be here. That’s the best advice I could give to anyone starting in the hospitality business.”
Heidi Hunt
New Team Member
BERLIN — RE/MAX Crossroads has announced Heidi Hunt as the newest member of the Davidson Beach Group.
Hunt is licensed in both Maryland and Delaware and is a resident of Ocean Pines. She is a “semi-native” of Ocean City for over 30 years and is familiar with Ocean City and its surrounding areas. She has a degree in Marketing and Management and has years of experience with the construction and design of condos and homes.
Ace Earns Recognition
OCEAN CITY – Rommel’s Ace Home Center of Ocean City is celebrating Ace Hardware Corporation’s recent recognition in the J.D. Power 2015 U.S. Home Improvement Retailer Store Satisfaction StudySM.
The results ranked Ace Hardware “Highest in Customer Satisfaction with Home Improvement Retail Stores, Nine Years in a Row.” Ace has captured this ranking ever since J.D. Power began this study.
“At Rommel’s Ace, we strive to meet and exceed customer needs year after year, and we’re proud to be part of the family of Ace stores that are all commited to delivering a more personal kind of helpful,” said Jeremy Thomas, store leader at Rommel’s Ace. “Our neighbors know they can depend on Ace’s dedication to superior customer satisfaction.”
The J.D. Power study is based on responses from nearly 3,000 consumers who purchased home improvement products or services in the previous 12 months. Ace Hardware ranked highest among major retailers with an overall satisfaction index score of 807 on a 1,000-point scale.
“We are honored and humbled to receive this recognition for an unprecedented ninth year in a row,” said John Venhuizen, president and CEO, Ace Hardware Corporation. “We believe we’ve been blessed to be in the business of serving others. Recognition like this from J.D. Power motivates the Ace enterprise to work even more diligently to amaze our customers and better serve our neighbors.”
Firm Expands To Resort
OCEAN CITY — Headed into a predicted record high-volume summer
season, Portland-based vacation rental management firm Vacasa has announced plans to expand its services to Ocean City.
To connect with area residents and celebrate its investment in the community, Vacasa — which has grown more than 16,000 percent in the past three years and was named one of America’s fastest-growing private companies in 2014 — held a celebratory ribbon-cutting at one of its first signed Ocean City properties on 69th Street.
“Ocean City is emerging as an increasingly popular tourism destination, which makes it an attractive location for us to operate in,” says Cliff Johnson, Vacasa’s co-founder and chief development officer. “We are enthusiastic about the opportunity to provide jobs in the
community and to grow our business there.”
Investing in Ocean City is a landmark development for Vacasa, which operates internationally with 819 employees, but has primarily served the west coast. The company plans to continue its large-scale growth with expansion both nationally and internationally in the coming year.
“In the past two years, we have been able to provide our homeowners with innovative technologies, like revenue optimization algorithms, which have enabled vacation rental homeowners to compete with large-scale hotels and resorts,” said Chief Revenue Officer Scott Breon. “We’re looking forward to offering that same service to homeowners and vacationers on the east coast and worldwide.”
UMES President Juliette Bell accepts a ceremonial check representing a donation by Nicholas Blanchard, the university’s former pharmacy school dean, to underwrite a health care speakers’ symposium. UMES development director Veronique Diriker is also pictured.
Endowment Announced
PRINCESS ANNE – A new endowment established at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore will be used to sponsor an annual symposium featuring speakers who can address national health care issues and concerns.
Dr. Nicholas R Blanchard’s $10,000 gift fulfills a pledge he made as founding dean of UMES’ School of Pharmacy. He currently is dean of West Coast University’s pharmacy school, a post he has held since 2014.
Blanchard visited the Princess Anne campus this past spring, when students and former colleagues celebrated the announcement that his donation would boost UMES’ efforts to expand the influence of the university’s pharmacy program.
He presented the gift during the Class of 2015’s hooding ceremony in May presided over by UMES President Juliette B. Bell.
“Dr. Blanchard’s generosity will be counted toward the legacy he established as our founding dean,” Bell said, “It sets a fine example for future generations of professionals UMES will be sending into the pharmacy and health care professions.”
Campaign Recognizes Hospital Birth Data
SALISBURY — Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury has reduced the number of elective inductions and cesarean deliveries performed before 39 completed weeks of pregnancy. This will give more babies in Maryland a healthy start in life, as babies born too early may have more health problems at birth and later in life, according to the March of Dimes.
Members of the PRMC Women’s and Children’s team and executive leadership of the Medical Center proudly display the banner presented to them by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Maryland Patient Safety Center in recognition of the Peninsula Regional’s commitment to improving the quality of care of babies and mothers.
“We are proud of our expert team of physicians and nurses who tackle this issue in our community and established policies to avoid scheduling deliveries before 39 weeks of pregnancy, except when medically necessary,” said Diane Hitchens, BSN, RN, Director of Women’s and Children’s Services at PRMC.
The achievement is made even more significant by the fact the PRMC delivers more babies annually than all other regional hospitals combined, averaging close to 2,000 births each year. It also features the Eastern Shore’s only Special Care Nursery for the treatment of newborns as young as 32 weeks gestation and/or weighing as little as 1,500 grams (3.49 pounds).
The most urgent infant health problem in the U.S. today is premature birth. It affects more than 450,000 babies each year and is the leading cause of death for children under the age of five. In Maryland, 8,914 babies are born too soon every year. Babies who survive an early birth often face the risk of lifelong health challenges, such as breathing problems, cerebral palsy, learning disabilities and others. Even babies born just a few weeks early have higher rates of hospitalization and illness than full-term infants.
At the Maryland Patient Safety Center Conference on June 11, 2015, the March of Dimes partnered with the Maryland State Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the Maryland Patient Safety Center to honor qualifying hospitals, including Peninsula Regional, with a banner to display indicating the hospital’s commitment to improving the quality of care for moms and babies.
The banner program is a component of the March of Dimes “Healthy Babies are Worth the Wait” campaign, which urges women to wait for labor to begin on its own if their pregnancy is healthy, rather than scheduling delivery before 39 completed weeks of pregnancy.
Additionally, PRMC announced that its March for Babies team raised $11,477 at the Salisbury March of Dimes walk on April 26 to support local programs to prevent premature birth.