Maine
Northeast Maine Telemedicine Network
Type of Grant: TOP
Amount of Grant: $600,000
Non-Federal Support: $600,000
Date of Grant: October 1998-May 2002
Project Partners: Regional Medical Center at Lubec, Sunrise County HomeHealth Care, Visiting Nurses of Aroostook, The Aroostook Medical Center, Houlton Regional Hospital, Northern, Maine Medical Center, Aroostook Mental Health Center, Aroostook Valley Health Center, Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians Health Center, Aroostook Band of Micmacs Health Center, Cary Medical Center, East Grand Health Center
Contact name: Carol Carew
Phone: (207) 733-5541
Email: ccarew@rmcl.org
The Regional Medical Center at Lubec (RMCL), with the support of a TOP grant, was able to install Northeast Maine Telemedicine Network (NMTN), a telemedicine system allowing nurses in northeast Maine to make electronic home visits with patients who would otherwise need to be hospitalized. Some of the sophisticated units are able to conduct remote testing of blood sugar and blood pressure levels. RMCL also provides teleconferencing equipment to link specialists in urban areas with patients and medical professionals in smaller regional medical facilities.
Joyce Frost of Calais, Maine suffers from both diabetes and first stage Alzheimer's disease and was told by the Eastern Area Office on Aging that she couldn't manage on her own anymore. A year later she is still in her own home, but she now has an added lifeline-NMTN's videoconferencing unit connected to her regular phone line. The unit provides daily meetings with a nurse who checks in to see how Ms. Frost is doing, to see if she has taken her medication and simply to provide her with reassurance. This supplements home visits, which are done through Sunrise County HomeCare Services, a division of RMCL.
The NMTN is rapidly growing into a statewide network, bringing together medical care facilities as well as other institutions like mental hospitals and law enforcement agencies. Its success is reflected in the fact that a growing number of organizations, both public and private, are seeking help developing their own telemedicine systems.
