MaineHealth

MaineHealth is a nonprofit, integrated health system composed of hospitals, home health agencies, physician practices, a regional laboratory, and other facilities. The health system serves three quarters of the state’s population. Creating a shared decision-making program as part of the Foundation-funded demonstration project fits well with the organization’s focus on population health and health policy and its goal of achieving excellence in clinical care, patient safety, education, and research. To empower patients to make informed health care decisions, health system leaders launched Learning Resource Centers (LRCs) in 1998. These health education libraries are located in or near MaineHealth primary care practices and are staffed by health educators with expertise in behavior change, self management support, health literacy, cultural competence, and chronic disease. The LRCs provide educational programs on a variety of topics and reliable, timely, and credible health information.

Using Existing Resources

 

Project leaders plan to make use of the existing Learning Resource Centers and electronic health records for the distribution of decision aids. Patients will be identified at the time of the clinical visit through use of the MaineHealth registry and decision support within the electronic health records. In addition, appropriate patients may be identified using the registry outside of the clinical visit. Patients will then view the decision aids at the LRCs or borrow materials for viewing at home. Health educators at the LRC will support patients’ use of the decision aids and answer any questions. Within the clinical sites, care managers will track the use of decision aids and follow up with patients and providers to help integrate use of decision aids into clinical care.

Pilot Sites

The initial pilot sites for this demonstration project include a solo family physician practice, a small hospital-owned family medicine practice, and three training sites for family medicine and internal medicine residents. Project leaders plan to distribute decision aids about preference-sensitive conditions (depression, benign prostatic hypertrophy, herniated disc and/or low back pain, knee and hip osteoarthritis), chronic illness (chronic pain, diabetes), and screening (colon cancer screening). For more information about this implementation project, please contact Lynn Doxey, Director, MaineHealth Learning Resource Centers at doxeyl@mainehealth.org.