MaineHealth to roll out new logo, new look and new names across hospitals

FILE PHOTO MaineHealth, Maine’s largest health care system, has begun rolling out a unified brand for its hospitals and other entities.

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By Laurie Schreiber

Portland-based MaineHealth, Maine’s largest health care system, said it has begun rolling out a new brand across its hospitals and other facilities.

The goal is to make it easier for patients to understand, find and access their care, according to MaineHealth.

The rollout includes updating the names of hospitals, medical practices, administrative offices and other locations, along with the system’s logo and graphic look.

Courtesy / MaineHealth

MaineHealth's news logo is shown here.

“More and more, meeting our patients’ needs requires us to provide services at multiple locations with a care team working in concert across what had traditionally been separate hospital organizations,” said Dr. Andrew Mueller, CEO of MaineHealth.

Another goal is to bring the organization’s care team together under a single corporate identity.

Mueller said a well-defined brand should help attract and retain caregivers, which in turn will benefit patients and support the organization’s bottom line by reducing the need for expensive contract labor.

Until now, transferring a patient between facilities with different names could result in anxiety, said Dr. Ross Isacke, chief medical officer at the system’s Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington. He's also practiced at Maine Medical Center in Portland and Stephens Memorial Hospital in Norway.

“In my role at Stephens, when I would tell a patient that they need to be transferred to Maine Medical Center for a higher level of care, or when we were sending a patient from MMC back home to Stephens, there could be anxiety about leaving the hospital that they know and trust,” said Isacke.

He continued, “Often, I would flip my badge over and show that I was part of both hospitals to explain that we are all one and the same. Now, with this new approach to our brand, that will be self-evident, and I think patients will better understand how we deliver care.”

New names for health care sites must adhere to strict regulations and require updates to critical systems. As a result, the brand update will be made in phases over a five-month period between June and October.

In MaineHealth’s southern region, Maine Medical Center in Portland and Southern Maine Health Care in Biddeford and Sanford are already coming together under a single hospital license with one medical staff. Other MaineHealth branches in that region will make the brand transition in June.

The mountain region — which includes hospitals in North Conway, N.H., Norway and Farmington — will follow in August.

The coastal region — made up of hospitals in Belfast, Rockport, Damariscotta and Brunswick — will transition in September, as will systemwide services for home health and behavioral health.

Locations will be identified primarily as “MaineHealth” and will all display the same logo across the system. In most cases, local hospitals will retain an identifier consistent with their historical names.

Naming protocol

Across the southern region, because the hospitals are uniting, the Maine Medical Center name will be used along with the hospital location. The locations will be known as:

MaineHealth Maine Medical Center Portland
MaineHealth Maine Medical Center Biddeford
MaineHealth Maine Medical Center Sanford.

Mountain region hospitals will be named:

MaineHealth Memorial Hospital
MaineHealth Stephens Hospital
MaineHealth Franklin Hospital.

Coastal region hospitals will be named:

MaineHealth Waldo Hospital
MaineHealth Pen Bay Hospital
MaineHealth Lincoln Hospital
MaineHealth Mid Coast Hospital.

The system’s inpatient behavioral health site in Westbrook will be named MaineHealth Behavioral Health at Spring Harbor.

The inpatient pediatric hospital at MaineHealth Maine Medical Center Portland will have its own version of the MaineHealth logo and will be called MaineHealth Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital.

Most other sites across the system will be renamed with MaineHealth as the primary identifier. For instance, a practice in Saco offering pediatric care will be called MaineHealth Pediatrics Saco.

At the practical level, the new approach to branding is expected to save money over time, said Terri Cannan, chief marketing and communications officer with MaineHealth.

Currently, MaineHealth operates with more than a dozen brand identities and logos. That means separate branding on everything from lab coats to stationery. The result even interferes with money-saving initiatives like combining laundry services across the system and standardizing care team badges.

“We will get a really good return on this investment,” said Cannan. “Not only will we see direct savings by eliminating duplication with all those different logos, but we will also be enhancing the experience for our patients and better positioning ourselves to attract top talent as a high-quality health care system united in our commitment to our patients and communities.”

MaineHealth employs more than 2,000 physicians and advanced practice professionals across more than 250 practice locations. The system has a total of approximately 23,000 employees.