Healthy Peninsula has received a $75,000 grant from the Maine Health Access Foundation as one of four Rural Health Transformation Grants. The funds are designed to support programs that promote access to a broad variety of non-traditional health services including social service supports.
Healthy Peninsula’s grant will support the Age-Friendly Coastal Communities Community Paramedicine Project, providing in-home care to Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital patients in the towns on the Blue Hill Peninsula and Deer Isle. The partnership, coordinated by Healthy Peninsula, includes Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital and its three primary care clinics (Blue Hill, Castine, and Stonington), Castine Fire Rescue Department, Memorial Ambulance Corps, Peninsula Ambulance Corps, and a network of social/community-based service providers that have been working together for several years to provide more coordinated, informed resources for healthy aging in our communities.
Specifically, the Community Paramedicine Project will provide coordinated medical and social service supports to improve access to timely, coordinated care for isolated, underserved older and/or disabled patients of Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital’s primary care clinics who live on the Blue Hill Peninsula, Deer Isle, or Stonington. The in-home care will be provided by trained emergency medical technicians and paramedics, as prescribed by the patients’ primary care providers, and will include services such as medication reconciliation, wound care, blood pressure checks, falls risk assessment, etc.
Both Memorial Ambulance Corps and Castine Fire Rescue Department have been providing community paramedicine services to their communities for several years. This project will expand those services and coordinate all services across the entire peninsula and Deer Isle, adding Peninsula Ambulance Corps as the newest community paramedicine provider in the region as soon as their project is approved by Maine Emergency Medical Services.
“We are excited to participate in this project and to help build on the experience of two well-established community paramedicine providers in the Castine and Deer Isle/Stonington communities. We know that transportation and access can be big challenges in our rural area, and we believe that integrating community paramedicine with our primary care clinics, to provide true community-based care, will be of huge benefit to many of our most isolated neighbors,” says Zoe Tenney, MSN, APRN, Director of Primary Care Clinical Quality, Northern Light Blue Hill Hospital.
For more information, contact: Anne Schroth, Healthy Aging Program Coordinator, at (207) 374-3257, or aschroth@healthypeninsula.org
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