By JENNIFER BAILEY / Staff Writer

The Greater Shelby County Chamber of Commerce will host the “Health care Professional of the Year Salute” in August of 2015.

This salute seeks to “recognize individuals who have made an outstanding contribution to healthcare in Shelby County” according to an email from Lisa Shapiro, Greater Shelby County Chamber member.

The Greater Shelby Chamber’s Director of Community and Workforce Development, Keyla Handley, said, “access to quality health care continues to be one of the main reasons why people want to live and work in Shelby County.”

The Health Services Work Group of the Greater Shelby Chamber “thought it would be appropriate to recognize the outstanding contribution which health care professionals make each and every day in helping to make Shelby County an even better place to live and do business,” Handley continued.

The Health care Professional of the Year Salute is a program that the Chamber’s Health Services Work Group has been discussing for years, and they hope that it will become an annual event.

Nominees can be from any health care field. “There are no limitations on the variety of categories or on the number of nominations that will be accepted.  The only criteria is that the healthcare professional be employed in Shelby County,” Handley wrote in an email.

Nominations for the “Health care Professional of the Year Salute” are being accepted through August 3.  Members of the Greater Shelby County Chamber who are in the healthcare industry will make up the panel of judges who will review all of these nominations.

All nominees will be recognized on Aug. 28 at the Greater Shelby County Chamber’s “Community Luncheon.”

For a nomination form or more information on the “Healthcare Professional of the Year Salute” contact Keyla Handley phone at 663-4542, ext. 106 or via e-mail at keyla@shelbychamber.org.