UM Upper Chesapeake Health, Foundation Honor Chesapeake Cancer Alliance

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Among the guests at the Chesapeake Cancer Alliance’s 20th anniversary luncheon were Elizabeth Wise, FACHE, President and CEO at UM Upper Chesapeake Health; Kitty Pickett, founding CCA president and charter member; Kathy Welch, past CCA president and charter member; Sandy Guzewich, UM UCH Foundation board of directors member and president and member of CCA; and Gail Cook, CCA co-president and member. (Photo Courtesy of Jim Lockard Photography LLC)

Infusion Center at Aberdeen Campus will be named the Chesapeake Cancer Alliance Infusion Center at Aberdeen

In honor of the 20th anniversary of the founding of Chesapeake Cancer Alliance (CCA), the Board of Directors of University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health (UM UCH) and The Upper Chesapeake Health Foundation have named the infusion center at the new Aberdeen campus medical office building the Chesapeake Cancer Alliance Infusion Center at Aberdeen.

The announcement was made at CCA’s 20th anniversary celebration luncheon hosted by UM UCH and sponsored by APGFCU on September 12 at Maryland Golf & Country Clubs in Bel Air.

Over the past 20 years, CCA has raised more than $2.5 million in support of Cancer LifeNet, which provides free supportive care services to residents of Harford and Cecil counties, regardless of where cancer treatment is received. Located in the Patricia  D. and M. Scot Kaufman Cancer Center at UM Upper Chesapeake Medical Center in Bel Air, Cancer LifeNet’s $1 million annual operating budget is funded solely through philanthropic support. The funds CCA raised over the past 20 years equates to funding 2.5 years of the Cancer LifeNet operating budget. 

“It is such an honor to recognize the Chesapeake Cancer Alliance for their visionary leadership. They really are ‘friends and neighbors helping friends and neighbors,’” said Elizabeth Wise, FACHE, MSN, MBA, President and Chief Executive Officer of UM UCH. “CCA members, volunteers and philanthropic supporters help us make a difference in the community, and we are truly grateful.”

CCA was founded in fall 2003 when a small group of Harford County volunteers came together to help local cancer patients and their loved ones. Their gifts of time, talent and treasure helped UM UCH establish Cancer LifeNet in 2006. CCA members have hosted many fundraisers over the years, such as the Festival of Trees, holiday house tours and raffles; their signature fundraising event is the Amanda Hichkad CCA Celebration Walk each May, which surpassed a cumulative $1 million raised in 2022.

Over the past 17 years, more than 20,000 cancer patients and family members have used more than 300 free-of-charge services provided by Cancer LifeNet. Services are designed to help patients and their loved ones find the resources needed to balance work, family and cancer treatment. Nurse navigators, social workers and other specialists work alongside people diagnosed with cancer and their families to create a safe and nurturing environment to help them with each stage of their cancer care.

About University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health
University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health, part of the University of Maryland Medical System, includes the University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Medical Center and the Patricia D. and M. Scot Kaufman Cancer Center on its Bel Air campus. Most recently, it opened The Klein Family Harford Crisis Center in Bel Air offering services for behavioral health. The Senator Bob Hooper House in Forest Hill is an assisted living facility that specializes in hospice. The University of Maryland Harford Memorial Hospital has been operating in the community for over a century and is located in Havre de Grace. The leading health care system and the second largest private employer in Harford County, UM Upper Chesapeake Health offers a broad range of health care services, specialty care, technology and facilities to the residents of northeastern Maryland. Visit    www.umms.org/uch for more information.

About the University of Maryland Medical System

The University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS) is an academic private health system, focused on delivering compassionate, high quality care and putting discovery and innovation into practice at the bedside. Partnering with the University of Maryland School of Medicine and University of Maryland, Baltimore who educate the state’s future health care professionals, UMMS is an integrated network of care, delivering 25 percent of all hospital care in urban, suburban and rural communities across the state of Maryland. UMMS puts academic medicine within reach through primary and specialty care delivered at 11 hospitals, including the flagship University of Maryland Medical Center, the System’s anchor institution in downtown Baltimore, as well as through a network of University of Maryland Urgent Care centers and more than 150 other locations in 13 counties. For more information, visit www.umms.org.

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