Northern Light Health is doing critical work essential to health care delivery in Maine

By Paul Bolin

What is going on at Northern Light Health? A recent Bangor Daily News headline asked this question. We’d like to answer it by addressing the serious financial challenges we and other health care systems across the country are facing in this post-pandemic world and provide some context about what we are doing to ensure the future of health care in our region.

For starters, Northern Light Health is staffed with many dedicated, talented, people who believe in our mission to deliver excellent care to our patients across Maine. These people also happen to be our friends, neighbors and loved ones. Each day, they are giving the very best of themselves for you and your family. Together, we’re facing unprecedented challenges as it’s clear the way we deliver and consume health care today is not sustainable in the future. 

We have been making improvements and innovating the way we deliver care for quite some time. Did you know that our investments in telehealth services provide people living in Aroostook County access to a dementia specialist from Northern Light Acadia Hospital 150 miles away, or that Northern Light Mayo and CA Dean hospitals share resources to staff a mobile mammography van to provide lifesaving mammograms to women across rural stretches of Piscataquis and Penobscot counties? 

Did you know that our strategic partnerships have paved the way for significant cost reductions while preserving jobs for our neighbors? In addition, we have made investments in our rural hospitals so that they are more efficient to operate and able to provide care for years to come. 

And just last week, we successfully converted to using a different yet equally effective anesthetic gas at all our hospitals that is better for the environment saving the equivalent of hundreds of tons of CO2 emissions each year. We are working on an integrated financial and strategic plan that will help us strengthen our financial performance and improve sustainability, which is critical to delivering on our priorities to preserve access to rural care.

Unfortunately, not all efforts to innovate and improve services get the same attention as when a primary care practice relocates out of an aging building, or a service contract needs to change to cover costs. Yes, we are facing a strong financial headwind. Medicare and Medicaid don’t cover the cost of care we provide, and the pandemic created a financial hole as people put off care and canceled medical procedures. It also changed the patterns and ways people choose to receive care.  

What are we doing about it? We are being smarter, and more efficient. Health care is an essential human need that helps us all live our best lives. Those who work at Northern Light Health, whether at the bedside caring for patients or in support of patient care, are passionate in the Northern Light Health mission to deliver excellent health care. We assure you that we are adapting and finding ways to do that in the new financial reality that we all find ourselves in. 

Will there be some changes? Yes. Will those changes make our health care system sustainable? Will we improve access through coordinated networks of care? Will we improve quality and safety outcomes? Will we retain a high-performing workforce by reinventing work? Yes, yes, yes and yes. This is what is going on at Northern Light Health.

Bolin is executive vice president, chief people & administrative officer for Northern Light Health.