Providing community benefit is at the core of Maine Medical Center’s mission of providing care to the community, educating tomorrow’s caregivers and researching new ways to provide care.
Our 2022 Community Benefit Report highlights initiatives and activities undertaken by MMC to serve our community during the fiscal year ending in September 2022. View the full report.
Community Benefit Highlights
Maine Medical Center, in partnership with Greater Portland Health, opened a new recuperative care facility in FY22. With 15 beds, the facility provides high quality, patient centered health care that is accessible, affordable and culturally sensitive. The new recuperative care facility provides medically appropriate care in a setting that is more conducive to healing for this patient population while also making efficient use of inpatient bed capacity for acute care patients.
The NNEPC serves Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont with 24/7 toll-free telephone consultations with health care professionals and lay persons about toxic substances. MMC contributes funding to provide services that are not sufficiently supported by state or federal government, such as poison- and drug-related outreach education for health care professionals and lay persons, poison and drug-related research, surveillance for terrorism, tampering/contamination, unanticipated adverse drug events, food poisoning and other public health emergencies, and support for all-hazards preparedness and response.
Maine Medical Center’s Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program, in affiliation with Portland Adult Education, serves a critical need for MMC and for the community. Offered at no charge to students, this state-approved course incorporates experienced MMC nursing staff as faculty/mentors within classroom presentations, skills labs, and supervised clinical experiences, highlighting MMC’s belief in CNAs as integral to the fundamentals of comfort, care, and outcomes of our patients and services. This seven week, 180 hour program is offered six times per year and provides for the inclusion of the Maine State Registry exam at no additional fee.
The current model, the CNA Apprentice Program, instituted in FY22, is based upon hiring participants as employees throughout the course, paying wages for 28 hours per week with accrued benefits. This opportunity is with the intent for graduates to commit to a preset term of employment at MMC as CNAs. Approximately 95% of our graduating CNA students are hired as employees of MMC with others being hired by organizations within our community. A number of these graduates go on to become RNs, PAs, ED Techs, and other members of the health professions.
