| MaineHealth News & Updates |
Andy’s Open Door Important Program Updates On the Aug. 17 Andy’s Open Door program, CEO Andy Mueller and Chief Operating Officer Kelly Elkins covered a wide range of important and timely topics. Kelly provided an update on the operating model redesign, including a preview of the Structure & Accountabilities work team recommendations.
Be sure to tune in Sept. 7 at 9:00 a.m. for Andy’s Open Door featuring Governor Janet Mills. Please submit any questions you may have in advance to AskAndy@mainehealth.org, or during the live chat on Sept. 7. Former Governor Paul LePage will be Andy’s guest on the Sept. 21 program. EXTRA! We have added an Andy’s Open Door “Extra” program on September 14 from 9:00 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. to cover the latest MaineHealth news and answer care team members’ questions. Check Andy’s intranet site for the Teams meeting link! |
Working Together with COO Kelly Elkins: Episode 3 In this episode, “Data rich, information poor,” MaineHealth Chief Information Officer Dan Nigrin, MD, discusses how a new Center of Excellence in data analytics will help foster a culture of innovation and bring our health system closer together. Click here to listen.
If you have suggestions for future topics, please email workingtogether@mainehealth.org. |
MMC OneCall Central to Cover SMHC, Mid CoastBeginning August 29, the OneCall Central operation at Maine Medical Center will expand its responsibility for all patient transfers, phone consults and roundtrips to Southern Maine Health Care and Mid Coast Hospital. This is the first phase of a plan that will eventually see the evolution to MaineHealth OneCall Central, with responsibility for bed management system-wide, including any transfer coming into the MaineHealth network. This concept grew out of coordination efforts among MaineHealth sites for placement of COVID patients. This patient-centered plan optimizes patient transfers, access and bed utilization for MaineHealth, ensuring we get the “right patient to the right bed for the right level of care,” and aligning a patient’s level of care and clinical service needs with the local health system’s care team and facility competencies. It will expand opportunities to keep patients at the original site and consult with subject matter experts at other MaineHealth sites. This new system will also benefit patients with shorter wait times for transfers to appropriate care. Transfer requests submitted to OneCall will be triaged to MMC, SMHC, or MCH based on clinical status and hospital bed capacity. OneCall will facilitate and document this process in the same way it does for MMC today. Providers seeking a transfer to the three medical centers should contact OneCall at 207-662-6632. |
Listen: Podcast on Designing for the Post-Pandemic FutureMaineHealth’s VP of strategy and business development, Alexander Green, and director of regional clinical planning, Angelique Kennison recently recorded a podcast with the Society for Health Care Strategy and Market Development (SHSMD). In the podcast episode, titled “Designing for the Post-Pandemic Future: Modernizing Space to Promote Safety, Efficiency, and Agility” Green and Kennison discuss what it means to become flexible and adaptable, and recent approaches to facility planning efforts post-pandemic. Listen to the podcast or read the transcription here. |
MaineHealth and Partnering Institutions Awarded $20 Million GrantThe National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced a five-year, $20 million research grant to the MaineHealth Institute for Research (MHIR) and its partnering institutions, the University of Vermont and the University of Southern Maine, to expand the transformative work of the Northern New England Clinical and Translational Research Network (NNE-CTR) in improving community health through biomedical research in rural New England.
The NNE-CTR was established five years ago to give researchers in rural communities the tools they need to develop and implement innovative medical treatments for chronic diseases common in Northern New England such as cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and substance use disorder. Principal Investigators Cliff Rosen, MD, Director of the NNE-Center for Clinical and Translational Research at MHIR, and Gary Stein, PhD, Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at the Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont, established a set of research cores to support clinical and translational research in Northern New England, with one focus being the engagement of rural providers and practices in research. Some of the pilot projects that researchers developed, such as using telemedicine to quickly identify newborns at rural hospitals who need treatment with therapeutic hypothermia, have now become standards of care in Maine. Read the full story |
Reminder: Mandatory Privacy and IT Security, Compliance TrainingAll MaineHealth care team members, clinicians, contracted personnel and volunteers must complete the Privacy and IT Security Training, Compliance and Confidentiality Agreement eLearning modules each year in compliance with federal and state regulations. If you have not yet completed the training, please set aside some time to do so. You must complete all five modules by September 30, 2022. If you were hired prior to 7/1/2022 and completed the modules during your orientation, you must complete them again before 9/30/2022. Each module takes about 5-15 minutes to complete. They do not have to be completed all at once. Read the instructions on how to access the training modules and view FAQs for more information about this required training. Questions? Contact the IT Help Desk at 207-662-6400. |
Tips for an Easier Transition Back to School As we transition seasons and children head back to school, it can be hard to get back into the rhythm of a regular schedule. Having a consistent routine helps us to manage time and tasks effectively. Read below for some great tips to ease the family back into school life.
· Set an alarm or notification 30 minutes before bedtime. · Create a family calendar or choose a calendar app that tracks everyone’s activities and commitments. · Organize lunch items in one part of the fridge for fast and easy lunch prep. · Create a plan but be flexible! Life happens – stay aware of obstacles that get in your way and make a plan on how to reduce them over time. Learn more back-to-school tips and ideas to build a routine that benefits you! |
MaineHealth WOW Upcoming Well-Being Live Sessions MaineHealth Works on Wellness (WOW) is hosting a number of upcoming sessions to help navigate the back-to-school transition. Sessions include:
· Aug. 23 at 1:00 p.m., Back-to-School Mental Health Progress Report: How Parents Can Be Prepared · Sept. 12 at 9:00 a.m., Mastering Meal Prep to Save Money and Time · Sept. 19 at 12:00 p.m., Supporting Loved Ones: Identifying and addressing signs of stress (with the Talkspace team) · Sept. 20 at 9:00 a.m., Finding Balance in Busy Lives: Simple tips to calm the chaos (with the Talkspace team) · Sept. 21 at 12:00 p.m., Family Nutrition: Meal Planning, Portion Control, Reading Labels, and More Browse the session topics and register today! |
Government Affairs Updates |
Congressman Golden Visits Western Maine Health Care On Monday, August 8, Congressman Jared Golden visited Western Maine Health Care to learn about the great work they are doing to achieve our vision of working together so our communities are the healthiest in America. The Congressman met with care team members who shared the challenges they face in finding appropriate levels of treatment for the increasing number of patients in need of behavioral health care. They shared the great work they are doing providing treatment for patients with substance use disorder. And they emphasized the value of being part of a system that supports educational opportunities for care team members.
 The Congressman was very engaged in the discussion and clearly appreciated the opportunity to speak with front line team members.
After a tour of the hospital, including the ED, the Congressman visited the PACE ambulance program for which he is supporting a substantial federal appropriation to update the building. The PACE team spoke openly about the passion they have for their work, and the importance of investing in a renovation to better meet their needs. The Congressman assured the group that he is doing all that he can to support the appropriation, which is also supported by both of Maine’s senators. |
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion |
DEI Strategic Plan Summary: Patients and Population GoalProviding patient-centered care—the first of our six values—means delivering care that is equitable and flexible; giving patients the care they need when they need it. We acknowledge that there are systemic barriers that prevent some people from achieving their full health potential and contribute to inequities in care access and health outcomes. MaineHealth will build upon our health improvement work and commit to building system-wide infrastructure that begins to address these barriers, including equitable access to language and translation services, leveraging data to understand and improve health outcomes for historically underrepresented and rural communities, enhancing cross-cultural care, and implementing best-in-class LGBTQ+ patient care. Patient-centered care means high-quality, accessible care to all, so that we become a trusted and reliable resource for all communities we serve.  Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Goal:
Develop functions to support and advance equitable care for every MaineHealth patient. Watch your colleagues discuss equitable patient care in Maine, how different ways of looking at the world impact experience, and how we can all grow through an intentional focus on DEI. 2022-2026 Summarized Objectives: - Establish a system-wide, Language Access Department for equitable access to interpreters and translation of vital documents.
- Conduct a Cross-Cultural Medical Assessment and develop a baseline understanding of cross-cultural awareness and competency.
- Develop and provide cross-cultural awareness education to reduce any gaps.
- Increase patient data collection of Race, Ethnicity, Language (REL) and Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity (SOGI).
- Establish health equity tracking benchmarks and stratify performance data on quality, safety and patient experience, by race, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation and gender identity, income, and disability status. Identify gaps and develop plans to improve performance and reduce disparity.
- Expand and integrate LGBTQ+ patient-related services across the MaineHealth system.
- Establish a system-wide spiritual care collaborative network to ensure equitable access to spiritual care providers.
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Pilot Project Translates Patient Education for Families with Newborns MaineHealth’s education and training team works to ensure that patient education meets best practice standards, including health literacy review. Patient education is an opportunity to engage and empower patients in their health care. When educational materials are only available in English, patients who don’t speak English have to remember what they learn verbally through an interpreter and have nothing to refer back to at home. Our patient education and interpreter services teams partnered to develop a standard workflow to help meet translation needs for patient education across MaineHealth. Using this workflow, a pilot project was introduced last year to translate newborn nursery discharge instructions for new parents.
This project was a collaboration between patient education, interpreter services, marketing, clinical informatics and clinical care team members like Aaron Wallace, MD, pediatric resident at Maine Medical Center. These departments worked together to standardize content, translate it into ten needed languages, and incorporate the information into the electronic medical record. Watch the video to learn more about how these teams collaborated to provide patient-centered care, helping to provide peace of mind for parents and better patient outcomes. Thanks to these teams and individuals, the groundwork is now set to better meet translation needs as they are identified by system priorities– just one piece of our Patients and Population goal as we get to work on the objectives outlined by the DEI strategic plan. If you are a clinical care team member, let your colleagues know that these translated discharge instructions are available in Epic! If you have ideas about additional translation needs or have questions about patient education, please contact translate@mainehealth.org or educationtraining@mainehealth.org. |
The Spark: Innovation at MaineHealth |
Innovation Blender: Come Brainstorm With Us! Join MaineHealth Innovation and The Roux Institute on Wednesday, Sept. 14 from 12:00 - 12:45 p.m. via Zoom for a special Innovation Blender featuring Aaron Brown, PhD, a Faculty Scientist at the MaineHealth Institute for Research (MHIR). Learn how brown fat can be activated to reduce obesity and metabolic syndrome. Hear about cutting edge research that supports using a state-of-the-art technique that employs a blue light device, eliminating the dependence on drug-based therapy. Aaron will present a challenge he’s facing in his work, and you will be given the opportunity to help brainstorm possible solutions.
Register for the Innovation Blender |
Final MaineHealth Innovation Fall 2022 Cohort Info SessionJoin the MaineHealth Innovation team to learn more about how the Innovation Cohort program can help advance back of the envelope ideas, and how to navigate the application process during the final information session on Sept. 15, from 7:00 - 7:30 a.m. – Register here The Innovation Cohort application deadline is Oct. 1 at noon. Learn more and apply here There’s Still Time to Learn More about Innovation Funds The MaineHealth Innovation Ignite Fund offers seed funding of up to $20,000 to help innovators understand user pain points, build a prototype or test an assumption. The application deadline is Oct. 1 at noon. The MaineHealth Innovation Bonfire Fund is an investment of up to $100,000 to support an advanced novel solution that can improve the lives of our care team or community members to a point where additional external or institutional funding opportunities can be explored. The application deadline is Jan. 2, 2023 at noon. Learn more and apply here Join the MaineHealth Innovation team to learn more about both of these funds and application process during the following information sessions: Sept. 12 | 9:00 - 9:30 a.m. – Register here Sept. 22 | 4:00 - 4:30 p.m. – Register here MaineHealth Innovation is committed to fostering a culture of innovation within MaineHealth and among our community partners by connecting, educating, and funding care team members. To learn more about these or other innovation opportunities at MaineHealth, visit the MaineHealth Innovation website or email innovation_center@mainehealth.org. |
| Professional & Educational Opportunities |
Free Webinar: Gender Equality in Caregiving – Making it the Norm On September 13 at 12:00 p.m., one of our partners, Care.com, will host a webinar on Gender Equality in Caregiving, led by Kate Mangino, gender expert and author of Equal Partners, and Maressa Brown, senior editor of Care. The webinar will cover the importance of equality in care work, and speakers will share tools to facilitate conversations surrounding care work in the home.
Learn more and sign up for the webinar. |
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