By Timothy Dentry, Northern Gentle Well being president and CEO
Northern Gentle Well being lately introduced a long-term relationship with Optum, a nationwide chief in info and technology-enabled well being providers, that can assist Northern Gentle make well being care work higher for folks throughout Maine. Optum and Northern Gentle share comparable missions targeted on reworking care and serving to folks reside more healthy lives.
By Timothy Dentry, Northern Gentle Well being president and CEO
Northern Gentle Well being lately introduced a long-term relationship with Optum, a nationwide chief in info and technology-enabled well being providers, that can assist Northern Gentle make well being care work higher for folks throughout Maine. Optum and Northern Gentle share comparable missions targeted on reworking care and serving to folks reside more healthy lives.
As a part of this complete relationship between Northern Gentle and Optum, roughly 1,400 workforce members, round 10 p.c of the Northern Gentle Well being workforce, will switch to Optum the place they may proceed to assist Northern Gentle Well being proper right here in Maine. And they’ll have new alternatives for development and profession development.
Please permit me to supply a little bit of background as to how we reached this resolution. All through the COVID-19 pandemic, Northern Gentle Well being lived as much as a “tradition of sure.” We ensured Mainers had entry to protected care. For instance, we made vaccines simply accessible at doctor practices, shelters, houses and faculties, and even at pop-up websites for these with issue reaching our providers. On many events, we had been the primary responders to outbreaks in care facilities for the aged — our Northern Gentle Dwelling Care & Hospice clinicians had been absolute rockstars. We took a lead position in new therapies designed to maintain folks out of hospitals, resembling monoclonal antibody clinics. We took steps to make sure the well being, security and wishes of our employees had been met by wage changes, accelerated hiring, staffing options, native partnerships for private protecting tools and extra.
In lots of instances, we mentioned, “Sure,” after which found out a method. These had been the correct decisions as a result of we knew how we performed ourselves through the pandemic would outline neighborhood belief in Northern Gentle Well being for many years to come back.
We took each step to make sure high quality and security, and took on long-term wants: creating our workforce, advancing the digital affected person expertise, creating a middle of excellence in behavioral well being and investing in modernizing 5 well being campuses throughout Maine, together with the brand new Northern Gentle Acadia enlargement, to alleviate the dire want for extra behavioral well being beds and providers in Maine, and making certain essential providers remained accessible in Bangor by continued funding in Northern Gentle Japanese Maine Medical Middle.
COVID-19 accelerated, and made extra pressing, many of those adjustments. Nevertheless, these selections additionally added to deep deficits, which now are being corrected. The pandemic, inflation and workforce shortages added to the well being care trade as an entire going through unsure financial instances and elevated monetary pressures, which have been immense. We’re grateful for substantial help from federal and state officers. Systemic adjustments in well being care bills (medicines, provides, labor, and many others.) rose throughout and after the pandemic that enormously put in danger a sustainable monetary outlook. We want a basically totally different price level and should reorient our belongings extra towards scientific providers.
Northern Gentle Well being and Optum will work collectively to enhance enterprise processes by funding in know-how and innovation. Optum brings experience to a broad vary of assist providers that can assist Northern Gentle concentrate on what we do greatest — look after the folks of Maine. Collectively, Northern Gentle Well being and Optum will enhance the scheduling and billing expertise for sufferers and suppliers; advance digital capabilities to enhance the affected person and supplier expertise; leverage new know-how and instruments to make sure sufferers are getting the correct care, on the proper time and in the correct place; and use information and analytics to anticipate and reply on to affected person, neighborhood and employees wants.
Northern Gentle Well being is on a path towards financial stability, permitting us to proceed to take a position sooner or later for our employees and the communities we serve. Working with Optum, a accomplice with scale and effectivity, will assist us reside as much as this dedication. To efficiently meet these altering instances, Northern Gentle Well being acknowledges it’s higher to go ahead collectively relatively than alone.
