Maine AHEC Network

Western Maine AHEC Director Jolene Luce joined Maine Public Health Association for their latest Healthy Maine Talks podcast to discuss the important role that Maine AHEC Network plays in addressing the healthcare workforce needs in Maine. Please listen to the episode to hear why this federally funded program is so critical to our state.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5rNpAVByvdDUBOtQdjpLyQ?si=4O79T_F9QaCZWiEhYNMe-g

Area Health Education Centers: Tackling Rural Maine's Health Care Workforce Shortage Healthy Maine Talks · Episode

The Maine AHEC Scholar program integrates one or more of the six HRSA designated core topic areas into each activity within the 2 year 160 hour AHEC Scholar curriculum. The six core topic areas are interprofessional education, cultural competency, social determinants of health, practice transformation, behavioral health integration, and current and emerging health issues. All Maine AHEC Scholars complete a rural health immersion during their first year in the program and the rural health immersions includes exposure to all six of the HRSA designated core topic areas. Interprofessional education is a key element of the rural health immersion.

The March 2022 western Maine rural health immersion includes physical therapy, occupational therapy, nursing, and dental medicine health profession students. Today was the second day of the rural health immersion and the students are exemplifying interprofessional education by learning with, from, and about one another. Anne Thomas, second year physical therapy student and Maine AHEC Scholar, shares her thoughts on interprofessional education during the rural health immersion.

"The body is not that big, said CMO Ross Isacke over dinner. This may seem like an obvious statement, but this has been the major revelation for me throughout today. On our second day of our RHI, we had a busy day taking us from Franklin Memorial Hospital to Mount Blue High school, to the CNA course at Beal University, and meeting with those just learning about healthcare careers to those who have served FMH for over 20 years. In describing our individual roles in patient care, I learned so much about where our professions overlap. I think in school or even in our practice, we can become very entrenched in our narrow profession and lose sight of how we’re all working towards the same patient health goals.

One example of this idea from today was from fellow AHEC student, Rose Liou’s oral health and dentistry presentation to CNA class. For me, I had never thought about how dentistry could have implications for PT or share any common goals. As it turns out, the mouth is connected to the rest of the body. Rose did a fantastic job of explaining how poor oral health can affect a patient in many ways, from influencing their diet, their mood, their pain level, or their ability to communicate. Poor oral health is linked to many other health complications such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. I think it would not be uncommon to see a patient in an outpatient PT clinic for an ortho diagnosis, but who also could benefit from dental care. With an established rapport built with the patient, and my new understanding and appreciation for dental, I could advocate for that patient to seek out that care. Based off reports from health professionals here at FMH, oral health is an especially big concern in rural Maine.

Today also offered a better sense of what the roles of other providers are, such as where there are overlapping skills, gaps in knowledge, and where there are opportunities to collaborate. At Beal University’s CNA course, I learned the techniques and principles that they are taught for transferring and positioning patients. As students in PT, Rebecca Ocana and I could help provide them with some additional coaching on how to make the experience more therapeutic for the patient and safer for the CNA. This might mean the positioning takes a little more time, but increases the patient’s independence and likelihood for going home. Mora Judd in the nursing program was also interested in how these same ideas could be communicated to nursing staff to have a unified approach and a deeper understanding for safe and therapeutic patient transfers and positioning. Going forward, I will consider where patient care overlaps with other professions and recognize opportunities to share our knowledge and expertise.

Overall, I have been so impressed by my fellow students, the healthcare professionals, and the interested healthcare students we met today. It has been inspiring to see how people collaborate to take care of their community."

University of New England Westbrook College of Health Sciences University of New England - Physical Therapy Franklin Community Health Network Franklin County Memorial Hospital National AHEC Organization UNE Center for Excellence in Collaborative Education

Last week another group of Maine AHEC Scholar health professions students participated in their rural health immersion, this time to western Maine, to get a glimpse of what its like to live and work in rural Maine. The group consisted of six health professions students from the University of New England's College of Health Professions and College of Dental Medicine who traveled to Maine AHEC's Western Maine AHEC Center in Franklin County. The group spent 4 days in the greater Farmington area exploring the health care system and community services offered in this region. All of the students participating in the trip applied and were accepted to the Maine AHEC Scholar Honors Distinction Program based on their intentions to work in rural Maine after they graduate; the rural health immersion is one of the activities that all AHEC Scholar complete during their first year. One of the goals of the rural health immersion is for students to learn more about community services that are available to underserved and disadvantaged populations so that once they are practicing they are prepared to connect their patients to the appropriate services.

Rose Liou, second year dental medicine student, shared her experience after the first day of the 2022 March Western Maine Rural Health Immersion.

"As we embarked on our journey in Franklin County, ME, our first stop was the Healthy Coalition Food Bank, where we learned more about the local partners in this tight-knit community. It quickly occurred to me that the role of this food pantry is far beyond ending hunger. This pantry plays a critical role in this area as a point of contact for resource coordination. This is a space where community members can come in to get fresh produce and seek other resources such as insurance enrollment, healthcare referrals, and cooking classes.

During a simple interaction with one of the pantry clients, we learned that this woman has been working as the sole caretaker for her mother and said that she “needs a vacation.” The staff at the pantry was able to quickly connect her to another staffer who could help process her application to become a paid caretaker for her mother. These honest human interactions, where the staff can provide a referral, can give a breath of fresh air for anyone who is struggling. I witnessed how knowledge is power and “knowing who knows what” is equally essential in a resource strained rural community like Franklin County. Community-based organizations often function as individual entities, but the demographic they serve often overlaps. This experience in the pantry shows that one’s basic needs are not simply food security, but financial stability, safe housing, and access to care are equally important.

As a dental student, I asked myself how I could use my role to further help my community. As dental providers, we are too afraid to ask patients these tough, personal questions on their basic needs to avoid opening a can of worms. Yet, for many people, dentists are the only healthcare providers they see regularly. If we are knowledgeable of our local resources and familiar with the available resources, we would also connect our patients to other experts whose job is to tackle these challenges. It is well established that oral health is far beyond our teeth, but their basic needs must be fulfilled for patients to take care of their teeth. This experience at Healthy Coalition further solidified my vision of creating an integrated clinic. I envision a clinic where doctors, social workers, and allied health work together under the same roof as an integral team in the patient center, whole-person care."

University of New England College of Dental Medicine Franklin Community Health Network National AHEC Organization

Another week, another Maine AHEC rural health immersion for health professions students to get a glimpse of what its like to live and work in rural Maine. This week a group of six health professions students from the University of New England's College of Health Professions and College of Dental Medicine traveled to Maine AHEC's Western Maine AHEC Center in Franklin County. The group will spend 4 days in the greater Farmington area exploring the health care system and community services offered in this region. All of the students participating in the trip applied and were accepted to the Maine AHEC Scholar Honors Distinction Program based on their intentions to work in rural Maine after they graduate; the rural health immersion is one of the activities that all AHEC Scholar complete during their first year. One of the goals of the rural health immersion is for students to learn more about community services that are available to underserved and disadvantaged populations so that once they are practicing they are prepared to connect their patients to the appropriate services.

Rebecca Ocana, second year physical therapy student, shared her experience after the first day of the 2022 March Western Maine Rural Health Immersion.

"As soon as we arrived in Wilton, we began to form a cohesive unit of future healthcare providers striving to bring healthcare access, advocacy, and equity to the forefront. The first conversation we had focused on our scopes of practice, our passions within each of our respective professions, and how we can utilize our AHEC education to provide better resources and care to rural Maine populations. By the end of the first day, we formed a powerhouse collaborative team consisting of PTs, OTs, dental medicine, and nursing.

My biggest question of the day as we worked at the Healthy Community Coalition’s food pantry was, how can a multidisciplinary team of healthcare providers work together to provide all the basic needs that underserved communities require? And just as soon as I was asking myself the question, it was answered by the various people we encountered that day. Our first contacts of the day, Ashley and Cheryl, told us that many resources are available for Franklin County residents. This includes help with homecare, food insecurity, substance use, and job training. The food pantry provided access to a group of people who need only to ask to be set up with any one of the services available to them. In fact, we witnessed this exact scenario during our time at HCC. A young woman shopping at the pantry made a comment about needing a vacation from caring for her mother full-time, which quickly prompted Cheryl to provide home health information. While many people would dismiss this woman’s comment as conversation filler or a little joke, I appreciated the quickness of Cheryl’s thinking to provide options to this person to improve not just her circumstances, but also that of her mothers.

The discussion over Franklin County resources continued during dinner with Doreen Wright from Western Maine Behavioral Health. What resonated with me the most is that she may not know of everything available to rural residents, but she knows exactly who to call who would know. To me, this further emphasized the strong teamwork aspect needed of healthcare providers in rural areas. As a physical therapy student, I recognize that I will spend a lot more time with my patients compared to doctors or dentists. This would require me to know who to contact in an event that a patient confides that they are in need. Therefore, the biggest lesson I learned is when starting my career in rural Maine is to seek out those people that know resources in the community to help play my role in improving any and all persons quality of care and life."

National AHEC Organization Franklin Community Health Network Western Maine Behavioral Health University of New England Westbrook College of Health Sciences University of New England