PBMC WCGH New Year Message

Warmest Wishes From All of Us at PBMC, WCGH

By Mark Fourre, MD President of Pen Bay Medical Center and Waldo County General Hospital As we approach the New Year, we wish you, our friends and neighbors, our best for a health filled New Year. I do this on behalf of all our enormously talented and dedicated team members at Pen Bay Medical Center and Waldo County General Hospital. Whether they serve patients directly in a clinical setting or indirectly in a support role, all are deeply committed to making our communities the healthiest in America. The season is also a time to reflect on our many accomplishments in 2019: • We improved patient access to specialty services by unifying with MaineHealth, the state’s largest health care system. Our team members’ dedication to our mission made the experience positive not just for all of us in the hospitals but for our patients as well.

We are a stronger institution and healthier community for it.

• We invested in the infrastructure necessary to deliver great health care locally, opening a renovated state-of-the-art Emergency Department at Waldo Country General Hospital and breaking ground for a 42,000-square-foot Health Center on the campus of Pen Bay Medical Center. To be completed by the end of 2020, the $16 million Health Center is designed to foster a collaborative approach among providers so they can better connect you with the wellness, prevention and specialty services you need. Many people made these accomplishments possible, and I thank them for their dedication, sense of purpose and teamwork.

• We responded to the evolving needs of the community by establishing Gastroenterology as a stand-alone department at PBMC and started constructing an expanded gastroenterology suite in the Physicians Building.

• PBMC established the Physical Medicine and Interventional Pain Management department to provide an alternative to opioid-based pain management. Interventional pain management is now available at both PBMC and WCGH. As we celebrate these and many other accomplishments, we also turn toward the challenges we will face in the New Year. As a health care provider, we adapt to the evolving needs of our communities. The 2019 Maine Community Health Needs Assessment Report indicates that we need to focus more on issues outside the walls of the hospital—on issues such as food insecurity, homelessness and meaningful employment. In some cases, that means refining the way we work with patients who come to us. An example is our commitment to screening every pediatric patient for adverse childhood experiences or ACES. In other cases, it means increasing our efforts to go into the community to deliver health care and education before people need to come to the hospital. We have been laying the groundwork for this for several years, increasing our focus on preventative health care as the single most efficient way to improve health care outcomes. In 2020, we will offer more health screenings, wellness classes and education programs than ever before. We firmly believe these efforts are the most efficient way to make people healthier and improve the quality of their lives.

All of this – the achievements of the past year and the optimism we carry into the New Year – is possible because of the trust you put in us every day. Thank you.

With warmest wishes to you and your family, Happy New Year!

Mark Fourre, MD President, PBMC & WCGH