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The University of New England has received two planning grants from the Maine Health Access Foundation (MeHAF) totaling $66,700. One is for the Maine Ethics Committee Design Project and the other is for Maine Health Careers Recruitment and Retention Project.
Maine Ethics Committee Project
The Maine Ethics Committee Project (funded at $39,800) is a design and planning study of ethics programs in two health-care organizations, Goodall Hospital in Sanford and the Frannie Peabody Center in Portland. The project will focus on two populations who experience disparities in health as a result of race, income, education or disability-the rural low-income population served by Goodall Hospital and the HIV/AIDS clients served by the Peabody Center.
The objective of this project is to complete the design and development of a model for ethics committees that can be fully implemented at the two sites and exported to other hospitals and community health-care agencies. This project will also develop educational and training material that can be used by the Center with other health-care agencies.
Center for Health Ethics, Law and Policy
The Maine Ethics Committee is part of UNE's Center for Health Ethics, Law and Policy, located on the Westbrook College Campus in Portland. The Center conducts educational programs, community outreach and research focusing on ethical issues affecting every-day clinical practice as well as examining the broad ethical and legal issues affecting health care and efforts at health-care reform.
"We are very pleased to receive the MeHAF grant," states Ethics Committee Design Project Director Barbara Shaw. "With this grant we will be able to take what are generally considered theoretical principles and apply them to the everyday issues faced by providers and clients in both of these organizations with the ultimate goal of positively impacting quality of care, access and the cost of health care."
Maine Health Careers Project
The Maine Health Careers Recruitment and Retention Project (funded at $26,900) will lead the effort to develop a comprehensive plan of policies, programs and strategies that will increase the health professions workforce in Maine, including recommendations and timelines for piloting and implementation.
This project is administered by UNE's Division of Community Programs in the College of Osteopathic Medicine, located on the University Campus in Biddeford.. The Division serves as the center of communication between academic endeavors and the community-at-large with particular expertise in principles, practice, and application of public health science, community coalition building, geriatric/gerontology, rural health services, health professions' workforce development, health literacy, and health-care systems.
"We are very pleased to have received a planning grant from the Maine Health Care Access Foundation," noted Meredith Tipton, M.P.H., Ph.D., associate dean for community programs. "As we address access to health care for all Mainers, the availability of trained health professionals, or lack thereof, is a major barrier to receiving quality health care. This planning effort, dedicated to health careers and recruitment of health professionals for Maine, is of significance as it will build on work done to date and recommend solutions, statewide and locally, that can be acted upon by all.
"Fewer young adults in Maine are entering into health professions than the number of health professionals who are leaving. Yet, our growing population of elderly citizens will place greater demands on the health-care workers than ever before," Tipton said.
This year MeHAF funded more than $600,000 for planning projects statewide.
Educating Health Professionals
The University of New England educates more Maine students in the health professions through its College of Health Professions than any other single educational institution, and includes Maine's only medical school, the College of Osteopathic Medicine, which emphasizes the education of primary care physicians. The medical school also offers Maine's only graduate degree in public health (MPH) and graduate certificate program.
(Press release issued Oct. 5, 2004) |
