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ick Links Bangor Beacon Organization M.Michelle Hood, FACHE EMHS, President and CEO Bangor Beacon Community Statewide Advisory Committee Chair
Erik Steele, DO
EMHS, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer
Bangor Beacon Community Principal Investigator
Leadership Catherine Bruno, FACHE EMHS, Chief Information Officer Lead
Dale Hamilton Executive Director, Community Health and Counseling Services Alternate
Clincial Transformation
Jim Raczek, MD
EMMC, Chief Medical Officer Lead
Robert Allen, MD
Penobscot Community Health Center, Executive Medical Director
Alternate Evaluation Barbara Sorondo, MD EMMC, Director Clinical Research Center Lead
Frank Bragg, MD
EMMC, Family Practice Provider
Alternate Meaningful Use Dev Culver HealthInfoNet, CEO Lead
Bob Kohl
Maine Primary Care Association HIT Project Director
Alternate
Sustainability
Mike Donahue, MBA
EMMC, Vice President, Physician Practices
Lead
Donald Krause, MD
St. Joseph Healthcare
Internal Medicine
Alternate
Bangor Beacon Staff
Mac Hilton Program Manager
Debra Carpenter-Zeman Project Manager
Andrea Littlefield
Senior Communations and Outreach Specialist
Lanie Abbott
Senior Communations and Outreach Specialist
Julie Adams
Administrative Assistant |
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Stay up to date with the Bangor Beacon Community! |
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Dr. Sorondo is blogging!
Barbara Sorondo, MD, MBA
Director, EMMC Clinical Research Center
Chair, Data and Performance Community of Practice, Bangor Beacon Community
Better care, better health, at a lower cost
The Way to Performance Improvement
Better care of an individual begins when care is provided at the right time; increases the safety of a patient, reduces disparities, and ultimately, is patient-centered. What if my doctor's office could achieve that, or even better? What if all doctors' offices in town collaborated to provide better care to the community without thinking about competing?
The Bangor Beacon Community hopes to achieve just that - better care of everyone in the Bangor region, helping partners work collaboratively, in a more efficient way, doing this for the common good, and thinking of the patient first.
Read the rest
on our website!
Read the rest on our website! |
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Erik Steele, DO, FAAFP, VP, chief medical officer EMHS, Bangor Beacon principal investigator and
Cathy Bruno, FACHE, VP, chief information officer, Bangor Beacon executive sponsor present, EMRs - finally realizing the promise, at this years American College of Healthcare Executive (ACHE) Congress on Healthcare Leadership. To learn more
watch this video.
eadership.
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Greetings!
The weather is starting to feel a lot like spring outside and that means we only have a short time left to enroll patients.We have recruited a third of the patients we need.
Perhaps you or someone you know is eligible to participate in the Bangor Beacon Community. Do you have have diabetes, COPD, asthma, or congestive heart failure? Bangor Beacon is using a collaborative approach to improving the quality of life for patients with those chronic diseases through the use of care management and health information technology, such as electronic medical records.
Please call 973-9070 for more information about participating in the Bangor Beacon Community study.
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97 and Going Strong!
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Margaret Taintor enjoys a good visit. If you are fortunate enough to spend time with Margaret, the minutes fly by as you find out about her life. She was born December 18, 1913 in Massachusetts, "We were poor but my brother, sister, and I found plenty to do we'd walk for miles for a good sledding hill when we were kids," remembers Margaret. Margaret was too busy enjoying life to get married young she says, "I was nearly 40 when I finally said "I do." I met him square dancing and we continued to do that for years together." Having no children, it was easy for Margaret to move to Maine in 1971 following her divorce. She moved in with her sister whose husband had recently passed away.
She and her sister have been on many adventures as they drove around eastern Maine exploring all the little towns along the way. Her favorite thing to do was eating at the local diners, especially in Dover-Foxcroft and Dexter. When her sister passed away a decade later, Margaret continued to live life on her terms. Her desire for friendship and adventure has not waned even with her current health status. "I had to give up my car 12 years ago - that was the hardest thing I have ever done." Nearly blind and suffering from congestive heart failure, Margaret still lives alone.
"She was hospitalized last fall and we thought we were going to lose her, but she has become stable with a lot of TLC. She truly is a delight," smiles Kathleen Bates, RN, care manager. Kathleen monitors Margaret's breathing and medications during a weekly phone call. Margaret knows by her breathing when she needs to take her diuretics. Margaret is doing very well and has had no readmissions to the hospital since she's had Kathleen as her care manager. "She really is an inspiration being able to live alone at 97 and unable to see well. I feel privileged to know her."
Margaret doesn't know what all the fuss is about; she's more interested in how the Red Sox will do this season . "So far I'm not impressed - they're not playing with any spunk." She's counting down until opening day. "I watch Sports Center, the Red Sox, the Patriots, I knit a bit, and I enjoy when the weather is nice and I can sit outside in the morning and sip my coffee," smiles Margaret as she looks forward to the days ahead.
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One Step Closer to Sustainability |
We hear from our patients that care managers are helping them improve their quality of life - so we know the Bangor Beacon model of care can work. "Patients are now the captains of their health team. If the grant ended tomorrow, our current reimbursement model does not provide for care managers," says Robert Allen, MD, medical director at Penobscot Community Health Care. The Sustainability Team has the important goal of making sure this model is here to stay.
"This is going to take an effort far bigger than one institution. We will need to work together," shares Donald Krause, MD, Internal Medicine, St. Joseph Healthcare. A team is in place to decide what we will sustain and the steps needed to ensure success. "Collaboration was the key to our community being awarded this grant and continues to be the cornerstone of our success," says Michael Donahue, MBA, vice president, Physician Practices, EMMC and Chair, Sustainability Community of Practice, Bangor Beacon Community.
Each Beacon partner had decision makers at the table for our first sustainability retreat. We also had four guests, including Aaron McKethan, PhD, program director for the Beacon Communities Program in the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology; Elizabeth Mitchell, CEO of the Maine Health Management Coalition; Steve Ryan, president and CEO of Maine Network for Health; and Tom Hopkins, director of compensation and benefits of the University of Maine System.
It was agreed that sustaining care coordination and care management are essential to our community. In order to do that, we need to have data that demonstrates that our model of care is cost effective. The idea is to use the data we are collecting to help us with payers. "You could ask insurance companies to start paying directly for new technologies or care managers, or you can use the data you are generating to participate in new payment models with multiple payers including CMS. In such models, the kinds of technologies and care management processes that are being developed as part of Bangor Beacon will be as indispensable and sustainable as email is today for most businesses," advises Aaron McKethan.
Stay tuned for more sustainability updates in the weeks to come. |
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A True Benefit to Collaboration!
We talk a lot about collaboration when we discuss the Bangor Beacon Community, and you can see that word really has meaning at the Clinical Research Center (CRC) at EMMC. All the partners involved with the Beacon grant agreed that this group would gather the data and report the findings. All eyes are on this team as they happily tackle this awesome responsibility. You may wonder, just who are they? The CRC team collectively has more than 100 years of research experience collecting, analyzing, and evaluating data.
Barbara Sorondo, MD, MBA, director of the Clinical Research Center is tailor made for this type of project. "Our Beacon community is small enough to control yet large enough to make a huge impact," shares Dr. Sorondo. She has been conducting research for 13 years. As a primary care and emergency department physician in her native country of Venezuela, Dr. Sorondo saw research as a way to improve many lives at one time. She studied at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Philadelphia. "I still use my skills as a physician everyday - my research helps make sure we are doing what is best for patients."
Janet Bayleran, PhD, research scientist, brings more than 20 years of research experience to the team. What "moves" her about the Beacon project is finding ways to help and, more importantly, motivate patients to improve their own health.
Sharon LaBrie, MS, is a research associate and a self proclaimed data geek. Sharon joined the team a year and a half ago with the sole intention of collecting, analyzing, and presenting data that will help quantify change.
Jen Violette, project coordinator, with a Master's of organization management, brings in eight years of working in the same capacity in the pharmaceutical industry. "I wanted to be part of Beacon because it is my chance to do something for the greater good while using my background."
The dynamic duo of Denise Michaud and Teresa White are clinical research coordinators with years of experience. They're role is identifying, screening, and enrolling participants for Beacon.
Gail Tudor, PhD, professor and director of Institutional Research at Husson University, consults with Beacon as a biostatistician. She helps CRC with design issues, sample size, power calculations, randomization schedules, and eventually with analysis of the data. Dr. Tudor has nearly 25 years of experience. They all agree this is the project will have a huge impact on lowering the cost of healthcare in our community.
The team is very busy and happy to report the first round of data will be available later this month! | |
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The 12 Bangor Beacon Community partners:
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