The new, combined leadership of Community Dental-Ches Penn gather in front of the Brandywine Center in Coatesville to celebrate the merger of the two organizations, allowing for more patients to be served in the local community. Pictured: Jaclyn Gleber, Karen Breitmayer, Tamara Fox,
Mike Lucas, Candy Harkins, Susan Harris, Susan Sullivan, Regina Lewis
COATESVILLE — Chester County Community Dental Center, provider of low cost clinical dental services and free dental health education, and ChesPenn Health Services, a leading Community Health Center, based in Chester, have announced plans to merge.
Effective July 1, 2014, Chester County Community Dental Center will become the dental office of ChesPenn Health Services’ Center for Family Health at Coatesville. The Center for Family Health at Coatesville is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) that provides comprehensive primary medical care to individuals and families on a sliding fee scale. This new partnership will provide fully integrated dental and medical health services to over 3,000 low income children and adults living in Chester County.
Community Dental Executive Director Regina Horton Lewis hailed the partnership as a venture into the leading edge of community health care, “We now know how critical dental health is to general health and it just makes sense to have our medical and dental health providers working together as a team to improve our patients’ health.”
Michael G. Lucas, President and CEO of ChesPenn, added, “The Board of Directors and staff of ChesPenn are delighted to form this new partnership with Community Dental”. We welcome Community Dental’s staff to our team and look forward to working with them to provide highly coordinated, patient-centered care to the residents of Coatesville and Chester County.”
Frances Sheehan, President and CEO of Brandywine Health Foundation, which provides funding for both organizations, expressed her enthusiasm for the move.
“As a principal funder of both entities, the Brandywine Health Foundation is enthusiastic about Community Dental and ChesPenn’s efforts to consolidate operations in Coatesville. In their shared facility in the Brandywine Center, integration will enable them to survive and thrive in the increasingly competitive healthcare marketplace, and to better meet their similar missions.”
Community Dental has served Chester County since 2002. ChesPenn Health Services has provided quality medical and dental services to residents of Delaware County since 1973 and expanded services to Coatesville in 2005. ChesPenn boasts four locations, three of which will include dental services with the addition of Community Dental.
