eNewsletter
September 2012
In This Issue
Emotional Eating is a Hard Habit to Break
Keeping on Track for a Healthy Finish
Valuable Information Shared and Important Feedback Provided

  
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
Bangor Beacon Community Executive Sponsor
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, General Internist
 Alternate

 

Meaningful Use
Dev Culver
HealthInfoNet, Executive Director
Lead
 
Sustainability
Mike Donahue, MBA
EMHS, Vice President, Payor Contracting and Relations
Lead

Donald Krause, MD
St. Joseph Healthcare
Internal Medicine
Alternate

  
Bangor Beacon Staff
 
Mac Hilton
Program Director
  
Melanie Pearson

Project Manager

 

Lanie Abbott
Senior Communications and Outreach Specialist

Andrea Littlefield
Senior Communications and Outreach Specialist

 

Amy Bates

Project Coordinator

 
Sharon LaBrie
Data Analyst

Heather Broussard
Data Analyst
 
Samantha Haynes
Administrative Assistant 

 


Stay up to date with the Bangor Beacon Community!

 
Hard Work and Investment Pays Off for Acadia Patient

 

Gladys Neptune was in a bad place when we first met her a year ago. Her living situation didn't offer much support and she was accessing care at local emergency rooms on a weekly basis. Thanks to her care manager, Danielle Reardon, LCSW, at Acadia Hospital her life has greatly improved. Danielle helped Gladys find housing at Freese's Assisted Living in Bangor. There her medication is managed by licensed healthcare care staff. She is taking her medications as prescribed, hence has reduced her falls and trips to the hospital by ambulance.


Gladys now goes to doctor appointments on her own. She continues to work with Danielle to find ways to keep track of her appointments. Gladys takes the bus to the grocery store and with her new dentures - something she's needed for years - she is able to eat healthier.

 

Her quality of life is improving by the day. Gladys plays Bingo and attends church at Freese's, she also enjoys doing the craft projects that they offer. "I use to spend four to six hours a week with Gladys and now we see each other just two or three times per month. She has come a long way during the past year. She reports more good days than bad and it feels wonderful," smiles Danielle.

 

Have You Watched Our Videos?


Please feel free to share the link as they reinforce our mission and vision for a  healthy community.
 

 Clinical Leadership 

 

Mental Health

 

HIT / Meaningful Use

 

Rick and Diana's Story

 

Performance Improvement  

 

Patti's Story

 

Bangor Beacon Leadership 

 

Eric's Story

Curious about the Future of Healthcare? - Here's an Idea Where We're Headed!

 

The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) has produced a video about health information technology and how it is upgrading the healthcare system for the 21st Century. The video outlines how today's technology is converting the information in our paper records into an electronic format which allows patients and doctors to have access to health information when and where it's needed. Learn more about the benefits of health IT and how online, secure access to health records can help everyone get the best care. 
  

 

 

Director of Beacon Communities Program Visits Bangor 
 

  

 

 

Craig Brammer, director of the Beacon Communities Program at the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), visited our Bangor Beacon Community recently. During his visit, he met with a number of our Bangor Beacon Community partners and had an opportunity to discuss advancements we are making and ways ONC may assist with barriers and limitations.

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bangorbeaconcommunity

Greetings! 

 

We're now back to school and into a routine, that is after a major virus swept through my house. My family is pretty blessed in that we usually only go to the doctor for our annual physicals and well-child visits. However, this summer I felt like we spent more than our fair share of time visiting with our healthcare professionals. Due to the nature of my work, I have a heightened sense of how healthcare should be delivered. I hear stories all the time how people don't feel satisfied with their care and I keep waiting for that to happen to us, but I have to say that my needs and expectations are being met with an A plus grade.

 

During the summer, I had a trail running incident on a Friday afternoon and by Monday knew I needed to go in to get it checked out. Not only did I get in to see a doctor quickly, but also by the time I walked down to have an x-ray the folks there were waiting for me. Within 90 minutes the doctor called to tell me that my arm was not broken. I advocated for myself by sharing with the doctor that I was going to go running if I didn't hear from him and so that made it important for him to call me to suggest ice and rest for another 48 hours. I followed his instructions and am back to my normal running. Leading up to the long holiday weekend my daughters were both feverish, complaining of ear aches, and sore throats. Rather than take a "wait and see" attitude and potentially ending up in the emergency department I called their primary care practice. Before noon we were seen, diagnosed, and home getting the medication and rest we were prescribed and both my girls started school without delay. The right care, the right time, the right place does equal better results and it's all our responsibility, I really understand that now!

 

And so does David Small, a diabetic patient who was discharged after he completed his 18 month program. David admits he was worried about not having his care manager checking up on him regularly. However, what is happening is quite wonderful - David has learned to become accountable. "I actually take my blood sugars more often, and don't just assume I know what they will be. I'm feeling really good."

 

Let us know how you are engaging in your healthcare!

 

Best wishes for a happy fall,

 

Senior Communications and Outreach Coordinator 

 Lanie Abbott

 


  

Emotional Eating is a Hard Habit to Break


Cathy Bishevsky has a delightful personality even though she doesn't think so. "I do well one-on-one but I don't do well in crowds." Cathy sometimes spends days at a time not seeing anyone face-to-face and yet she talks to people all day long. She answers insurance questions for a national company from the comfort of her own home office. "I'm very good at my job and figuring out answers and finding a way to get things done." The Bishevsky family moved to Sherman, Maine in the late 60s to get away from the crime and violence of New York City, where her dad was a school teacher. "We quickly fell in love with Maine. When we were kids, my two younger sisters and I would play outside from sun up 'til sundown making up games and just having fun." She was a very active and strong kid and helped her family cut, stack, and haul the 15 cords of wood they would burn each year to stay warm. "Even though I was active, I can always remember being overweight and no matter what I did I couldn't lose the extra weight.


Staying active when she got older was a bit of a challenge. Cathy doesn't play sports she enjoys arts and crafts, reading, and cooking. She's always eaten healthy with plenty of fruits and vegetables in her diet and she doesn't really have a sweet tooth. Cathy has always been good about seeing her doctor routinely and having her yearly exams. In December of 2011 she learned that her blood sugars had become officially high enough to call her a diabetic. "I wasn't surprised, I have a family history of diabetes but I wanted to make changes because I have no interest in taking insulin."

That's how Cathy met Erin Horne, RN, care manager at Orono Family Medicine. "When I first started working with her in January her blood sugar was 218 (it should be 70-120)." The two women started talking and/or emailing weekly about Cathy's weight and lifestyle and what would happen if she didn't start making some changes. Cathy wanted to approach this like a business and together they developed a vision statement for her future, healthy self. "We wrote detailed three month goals as well as weekly goals." The approach seems to be working, since January Cathy's A1C has dropped from 7.8 to 6.2, she has lost about 15-20 lbs." Cathy is also using her elliptical up to five days per week for 30-45 minutes. Cathy also joined the Bangor Beacon Community team and walked in her first 5K in April.

Cathy is learning that her eating habits help contribute to some of her health issues. "I was eating one large meal a day at the end of the day and I'm realizing now how bad that is for you." Now she works hard at eating a healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner and having snacks in between. "I'm an emotional eater. When things are going well I could go a day without eating, but when things are not going well I can consume in one meal what should be spread out over two days."

Learning about portion control and carbs is helping pave the way for Cathy. She knows with help she can achieve her goal of losing a hundred pounds and not having to take insulin for her diabetes. "I'm learning new ways to manage my stress so that it doesn't affect my lifestyle."

 


 

 

 Keeping On Track for a Healthy Finish

 

Grant partners continue to work together to ensure celebrating our successes at the end of the Bangor Beacon Community grant on March 31, 2013. Cathy Bruno, Bangor Beacon Community executive sponsor and EMHS vice president and chief information officer, relayed the importance of unity for us to finish strong and compared it to navigating a boat into a slip at the dock. She invited the Final Year Cabinet, made up of representatives from our Communities of Practice, to consider what additional needs could be anticipated now through the end of the grant to make sure we collectively meet our objectives. The draft Final Year Plan underscored these intentions and serves as an overview of the completion status of strategic activity underway.

Mac Hilton, program manager, reported on the status of the budget and plans for revising contracts to match final allocations. He also provided additional information and answered questions regarding the application of funds toward Clinical Research Center (CRC) and the use of EMHS grant funds toward sustainability through the EMHS Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO).

Jim Raczek, MD, senior vice president of Operations and chief medical officer, Eastern Maine Medical Center; Bob Allen, MD, executive medical director, Penobscot Community Health Care; Dev Culver, executive director and CEO, HealthInfoNet; and Dale Hamilton, executive director, Community Health and Counseling Services, all spoke in favor of leveraging existing Beacon structures for final year program management, preparing a final report well in advance of deadlines, and honing in on what it will take to fully harvest lessons learned and to mine gaps for sustainability.

Bangor Beacon will employ existing project task forces, the care management group, and the Statewide Advisory Committee to continue exploring ways to examine the barriers that remain in making improvements and showing results with mental health, homecare, and health information technology

 

 

  

   Valuable Information Shared and Important Feedback Provided
 

Our Beacon Patient Advisory Group continues to learn about different tools being created to help our community be healthier. They were curious to know more about Community Care Teams and how this approach is designed to help some of our most complex patients get the care they need where they need it. Jaime Boynton, the coordinator of this local effort, presented some of the early success they are having during our latest meeting. "We had a patient that was seeking medical care at a local emergency department 22 times in one month. The care manager at the patient's primary care practice asked us to step in. We were able to provide face-to-face time with this patient in their home and work on ways to help them get healthier. In 90 days they have gone back to the emergency department just twice," shares Jaime. She offered, in great detail, how they help people turn their health situations around.

"I like that they are an extension of what is happening in the primary care practices and that they connect and work with resources in our area and don't try to recreate the wheel or duplicate services," comments Shawn Yardley, director of Bangor Health and Community Services. Currently, this team is working with 60 patients in three Bangor practices which will grow to 30 practices from Waterville to Fort Kent in 2013. The group confirmed for Jaime that their approach is on target and they felt a sense of relief knowing this work was happening and were happy to hear it was going to be offered to more people in the future.

The Patient Advisory Group has been instrumental in guiding us in our communication plans for the EMHS Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO). They offered some great insight into a letter that the Centers for Medicare (CMS) will send out to patients we care for in the fall. They thought the brevity of the letter was good, but suggested we insert an educational piece to supplement the information. In light of their comments we are conducting more outreach and education to the Area Agencies on Aging throughout our region as well as to primary care practice staff so that they can better understand changes taking place and can provide more support and understanding to patients who may have questions.

Lastly, with flu season right around the corner providers, in our Performance Improvement Community of Practice requested feedback regarding improving immunization compliance with patients. Dave Small, a patient at EMMC's Orono Family Medicine had just got his shot that morning. "There were signs everywhere when I walked into the office it made me remember to ask for it and I got it, very easy." The group offered four recommendations:

  1. Let patients know there is a nasal spray option;
  2. Have the provider press the patient a little bit if they declined the vaccine from a medical assistant or a nurse;
  3. Work on a communication mechanism between pharmacies and community groups that give immunizations so that the information is shared with people's doctor's offices; and
  4. Provide more business flu clinics so that employees can get immunized at work.

The group will reconvene in October and have an opportunity to provide important feedback on Patient Portals, a new tool being developed to engage patients in their healthcare.

The 12 Bangor Beacon Community partners: