Processing Your Payment

Please do not leave this page until complete. This can take a few moments.

September 23, 2010 Bangorbiz

Bangor Beacon Community health care project to launch

By The Mainebiz News Staff

A community health care project funded by nearly $13 million in federal aid and headed up by Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems will officially launch next week.

The Bangor Beacon Community will hold an event Sept. 30 to mark the groundbreaking of a new health information technology that will connect EMHS with smaller hospitals and providers in the greater Bangor region, according to a press release from the Bangor Beacon Community. In May, EMHS was one of 15 organizations nationwide chosen to receive funding through the federal Department of Health and Human Services' Beacon Community Program, designed to improve health care quality and efficiency through the development of health IT networks.

The three-year funding will be used to improve the health of people with a number of chronic conditions, including diabetes, COPD and congestive heart failure. Other partners include The Acadia Hospital, Penobscot Community Health Care, St. Joseph Hospital and Eastern Maine Community College, which is developing a program to train health information staff, according to the release. In addition, HealthInfoNet, the state's nonprofit health information exchange of which EMHS is a member, will be used to expand the region's health information connectivity.

The event will happen at 10 a.m. at Eastern Maine Medical Center's Lafayette Family Cancer Center in Brewer.

In total, DHHS' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology doled out $220 million to Beacon Communities, funded by federal stimulus money.

Sign up for Enews

Most Recent

Most Recent

Comments

Order a PDF