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Flagler Health+ Names Dr. Batenhorst and Dr. Townsend to Ambulatory Enterprise Leadership Posts

  • Category: News
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  • Written By: Erin Wallner
Flagler Health+ Names Dr. Batenhorst and Dr. Townsend to Ambulatory Enterprise Leadership Posts

St. Augustine, Fla. February 16, 2022 – Flagler Health+ has announced that Todd Batenhorst, MD has been promoted to Chief Medical Officer, Ambulatory Enterprise and that Richard Townsend, MD will join Flagler Health+ as Chief Medical Information Officer, Ambulatory Enterprise.

“Dr. Batenhorst has been an integral part of the ambulatory enterprise since the beginning, and the addition of Dr. Townsend, who brings extensive experience in the field of medical informatics, will only serve to strengthen the team at Flagler Health+,” said David Rice, MD, EVP and Chief Physician Executive of Flagler Health+.

In addition to their leadership roles, Drs. Batenhorst and Townsend are practicing primary care physicians who will continue to serve patients in the community.

Dr. Batenhorst, a founding member of the Flagler Health+ Ambulatory Enterprise, has been elevated to serve as the physician leader for all ambulatory service lines while working closely with administrators and practice managers regarding clinical quality, patient safety, and performance improvement. Dr. Batenhorst will lead all providers in medical affairs for the enterprise and will continue to serve as an active primary care physician at Flagler Health+ Primary Care at St. Augustine.

Dr. Batenhorst has been caring for the residents of St. Johns County since 2001. He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska Medical Center and he completed his residency at the Medical College of Virginia. His specialties and areas of interest include adult primary care, general wellness, preventative care, and chronic disease management.

Dr. Townsend will lead the enterprise-wide medical informatics to improve office efficiency and to provide information regarding patient population and projected growth across all service lines. He will work to optimize the electronic medical record system (EMR) through collaborative communication with the team by leading an EMR-focused workgroup aimed at identifying opportunities to improve and streamline our EMR and interfaces. He will begin seeing primary care patients, ages 4 and older, on March 3 at the Flagler Health+ Village at Nocatee.

Dr. Townsend received his Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry from Wake Forest University before earning his medical degree from the University of South Florida. After graduation, Dr. Townsend was commissioned into the United States Navy, where after interning in the Family Medicine Dept. at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, he completed Flight Surgery School at the Naval Operational Medical Institute at NAS Pensacola.

He was assigned to Patrol Squadron 45 at NAS Jacksonville as a Naval Flight Surgeon, where he was named WINGSLANT Navy Flight Surgeon of the Year in 2000. During this time, he was a NASA team member for shuttle launches in 2000-2001.

After leaving the Navy, he stayed in Jacksonville to complete his residency in the Family Medicine Dept. at the Mayo School of Medicine. He moved to Baptist Primary Care in 2003 until joining Flagler Health+ in March 2022.

Active in the community, Dr. Townsend directed relief efforts when Hurricane Dorian ravaged the Bahamas in 2019 delivering more than $100,000 in medical supplies and raising more than $250,000 for medical relief.