Five hospitals in Maine have formed the Maine Rural Health Collaborative LLC with a goal of preserving and enhancing health care within the communities they serve.
The hospitals are: Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent, Cary Medical Center in Caribou, Houlton Regional Hospital, St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor and Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor.
The collaborative was formally announced at a March 12 meeting of the five hospital CEOs and members of their boards of directors in Bangor. Tom Moakler, chief executive officer at Houlton Regional Hospital, said the move comes at a period of change in health care.
“The advent of the Affordable Care Act, changes in reimbursement and a number of other complex issues are reshaping the landscape for hospitals and other health care providers across the nation,” Moakler said in a news release announcing the collaborative. “Our hospitals here in Maine are coping with these changes while facing unique challenges in providing health care to a rapidly aging and low-income population, particularly in rural parts of the state. By working together in a collaborative fashion we can all benefit from each other’s experience, standardize best practices and protect quality, accessible care.”
According to a recent report by the American Hospital Association, 72 million Americans, or 22 percent of the nation’s population, live in rural areas and depend on their local hospital as an important and often the only source of care. Rural hospitals often are also their communities’ largest employers.
Mary Prybylo, CEO at St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor, said the health collaborative will look for ways to improve access to care, particularly preventive services.
“By working together we can identify programs that are working the best and replicate them so that patients can be more engaged in self-care and prevent complications,” she said in the news release. “Advancing technologies may also benefit us in this effort by being able to deliver some of this education online, reducing the patient’s need for travel.”
A shortage of primary care physicians also affects many rural hospitals.
Peggy Pinkham has been hired as the executive director for the Maine Rural Health Collaborative LLC. A former hospital CEO, she for the last six years has consulted on health care issues primarily in Maine. She also works with the Maine Rural Health and Primary Care Program and Maine’s critical access hospitals. Pinkham, a registered nurse, earned her MBA at New Hampshire College.