MAC Center of Excellence awarded $733,698 grant

The Living Well Center of Excellence at MAC Inc. in Salisbury has been awarded a two-year Chronic Disease Self-Management Education grant from the Administration for Community Living.

Only eight of the grants were awarded nationwide. The grant to MAC totaled $733,698.

“The ACL grant is the beginning of a major period of growth for this agency,” according to Margaret A. “Peggy” Bradford, executive director of MAC Inc. Bradford notes, “Under the direction of Leigh Ann Eagle, MAC’s Living Well Center of Excellence is shepherding the statewide expansion of programs to empower persons with chronic conditions to live a healthy life.”

This grant supports the Center’s recent activities to provide statewide coverage for licensing, training, technical assistance and data management for several evidence-based programs.

An important partner in the development and capacity building of the Center has been Maryland’s Department of Aging, which will continue to play a key role in this grant. Additional partners include: the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Peninsula Regional Medical Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology and Meritus Medical Center.

MAC will work with health care systems, the aging network and state and community partners throughout Maryland to meet the goals of this Living Well project:

· To significantly increase the number of older adults and adults with disabilities in underserved areas and populations who complete evidence-based self-management education and support programs to empower them to better manage their chronic conditions; and

· To implement innovative funding arrangements to support the proposed programs, while embedding the programs into an integrated, sustainable evidence-based prevention program network.

Also receiving grants were: Health Foundation of South Florida, Miami; AgeOptions Inc., Oak Park, IL; Mississippi State Department of Health; University of North Carolina at Asheville; Health Promotion Council of Southeastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; South Dakota State University; and the Community Council of Greater Dallas in Texas.