Over the last two years, MCD Global Health has supported 91 private nonmedical institutions (PNMIs) in Maine to acquire and launch telehealth equipment for PNMI residents to use.

Now, more than 1,500 people who live at these PNMI care facilities can connect with their primary care and behavioral or mental health provider via video.

A PNMI is a type of residential care facility that receives reimbursement from MaineCare, Maine’s Medicaid program, for providing community support and services for residents enrolled in MaineCare.

For residents and staff at these facilities, the benefits are a game changer. For example, access to telehealth saves staff time spent accompanying residents to in-person appointments. It also gives residents more flexibility and the ability to avoid waiting rooms while sick and keep appointments that may have been canceled due to weather or other situations.

Telehealth services at these facilities also helps staff with work-life balance and increased patient engagement; residents who use telehealth can better stay on track with their health and avoid missing appointments while making appointments more convenient and maintaining consistency with their care.

“Staff within these facilities have made it clear that this is the first time that they have had the opportunity to get funding and technical assistance like this to add or expand telehealth services,” Reid Plimpton, MCD’s Digital Health Initiatives program manager, said. “They're now telehealth access points, and through this process of helping these sites decide what the best fit is in terms of technology and their residents’ needs, it’s really helped us understand some of the nuances of health care within the PNMI environment.”

This work is part of a project funded through the Office of MaineCare Services, Maine Department of Health and Human Services, with funding from Section 9817 of the American Rescue Plan to improve and expand home and community-based services.

“Thank you for you and your team's support and deployment of these devices through this grant project," said Jessica Turcotte, associate administrator of community based services at Kennebec Behavioral Health. "It's been an exciting adventure, has aided our clients to have enhanced access to needed services, and offers improved opportunities to access those services with privacy."

When COVID-19 began, use of telehealth greatly increased and became the preferred visit type to meet patients in a safe environment. Since then, more benefits of digital health care have surfaced, and perhaps the most noticeable benefit is it allows patients to meet with health care providers in a more timely and efficient manner.

In Maine, many people live in rural towns or on islands with providers located few and far between. In the past, patients sometimes had to wait months, or even a year, to see a provider or specialist and then travel for hours to the site, be it by car or ferry. Telehealth technologies help ease such hassles for both patients and providers, creating timelier and better patient-centered care.