History & Annual Report
Fifty years of serving Western Maryland, and the reports that document our programs, financials, and community impact along the way.
AHEC West was established in 1976 as the first Area Health Education Center in Maryland — a model born out of a national effort in the early 1970s to address severe shortages of doctors, nurses, and public health workers in underserved communities. Two more Maryland AHECs would later follow: the Eastern Shore AHEC in 1995 and the Central Maryland AHEC in 2002.
For fifty years, AHEC West has worked from its home base in Cumberland to improve access to quality healthcare across Garrett, Allegany, Washington, and Frederick counties in Maryland, and Mineral County in West Virginia — a region where most communities are designated Health Professional Shortage Areas. As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, AHEC West partners with local, state, federal, and private organizations to recruit, train, and retain the health workforce this region depends on, and to close longstanding gaps in care shaped by rurality, poverty, and access.
What began as a single initiative to place health professions students in rural rotations has grown into a network of programs spanning workforce training, substance use recovery, health insurance navigation, and community health education — each one built around the same founding belief: that where you live shouldn't determine the quality of care you receive.