About Us

In 1996, eight community health centers from across the state of Maryland came together to meet significant economic and regulatory challenges impacting their abilities to continue providing accessible health care to many of Maryland’s uninsured and low-income residents. In coming together, the centers founded Community Health Integrated Partnership (CHIP), a nonprofit, operational network to assist the centers improve access to health care, maximize the quality of their services, and achieve cost savings—all vital to the ability of these centers to thrive in an unstable health care environment where building partnerships is key to successful participation in the health care market.

Working on behalf of the centers, CHIP supports and facilitates the development of a shared information infrastructure, streamlining of operational services, coordination of quality improvement activities, implementation of best practices (proven protocols), and opportunities for the centers to learn from each other’s expertise and experiences.

CHIP Services Include:

• Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) – Committed to excellence in quality health care and understanding the value of accreditation, CHIP facilitates the extensive accreditation process JCAHO. JCAHO is a leading accreditation body for health care organizations in the United States, establishing standards by which health care quality is evaluated. Thus far, six of the partners have received accreditation.
• Integrated Practice Management Information System (PMS) – In 2000, CHIP received a grant from the Bureau of Primary Health Care to purchase a PMS to be shared by each center, managed by CHIP, and integrated such that each centers’ practice data would be stored in a central repository. PMSs are essential to the accurate and efficient management of comprehensive practice data (e.g. volume of patients) used to improve the delivery, quality, and cost-effectiveness of health care. The advantages to the integrated PMS are that it: 1) can be centrally managed by CHIP’s team of PMS specialists, affording the partners a higher caliber of information system management, and 2) allows for the aggregation and comparison of center data. 
• Health Disparities Collaborative on Diabetes – CHIP coordinates participation in this federal initiative to reduce disparities in health outcomes for underserved people with diabetes. All of the centers are engaged in learning about methods for improving diabetes care, testing and implementing changes at their delivery sites and share the results with the other centers as well as national participants.
• Credentialing

CHIP member centers include:

• Chase Brexton Health Services, Inc., in Baltimore City and County
• Peoples Community Health Centers, Inc., in Baltimore City, Baltimore and northern Anne Arundel Counties
• Choptank Community Health System, Inc. serving the middle and upper Eastern Shore
• Three Lower Counties Community Services, Inc. serving the lower Eastern Shore
• Community Clinic, Inc. serving Montgomery and northern Prince Georges Counties
• Greater Baden Medical Services, Inc. serving, southern Prince Georges, Charles and St. Mary’s Counties
• Owensville Primary Care, Inc., serving southern Anne Arundel and northern Calvert Counties
• Total Health Care, Inc, serving Baltimore City