Heart program going nationwide
By Kathryn Skelton
Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Two hospitals and a highly visible husband-wife medical team have formed a new company to market heart-healthy software to a national audience.

“It’s truly a made-in-Maine product,” said Richard Batt, president of Franklin Memorial Hospital, during Thursday’s rollout of Franklin ScoreKeeper LLC. “It holds real promise to help employers control (health insurance) costs.”

Born 30 years ago from a system of index cards created by Farmington physician Burgess Record and his wife, Sandy, a registered nurse, ScoreKeeper computer software has evolved to the point that it can determine an individuals’ risk for cardiovascular disease.

Under the program, during screenings at doctors’ offices, worksites and community centers, patients team with nurses to review medical history, activity level, allergies, stress and other things, ultimately creating a personal chart that signals being at goal (smiley face) or not at goal (little red heart) on measures like cholesterol and glucose.

Information is forwarded to the person’s own doctor for follow up. When the screening is paid for by a company for its employees, the health data is lumped together and shared with the company.

In Franklin County, where the couple formed the Western Maine Center for Heart Health, Burgess Record said there have been documented improvements in increased life expectancy, less smoking and fewer hospitalizations.

But it’s important to take the program out of that county and see it applied on a wider level, Burgess said.

Enter Central Maine Medical Center.

Peter Chalke, president of Central Maine Healthcare, said that two years ago, when CMMC began forming its future heart center, the hospital searched nationwide for a prevention program and ultimately settled on ScoreKeeper.

The hospital has since moved from being a client to a partner, joining Franklin Memorial and the Records for the new for-profit enterprise.

“We have the opportunity to take what we developed, test it on a broader scale,” Burgess Record said.

The new corporation will employ six people. It’s currently in search of a chief executive officer.

“This is a laboratory. We’d love to have people visit our communities to see how it works in real time,” said Chalke. He added that some patients of the hospital’s new vascular institute, had they been screened years before and set on a path toward better health, may not have ended up needing heart surgery. “It’s trying to fix the problem earlier, when it’s fixable,” Chalke said.

During the new company announcement, Burgess was also named medical director for prevention and outreach at the Central Maine Heart and Vascular Institute.

kskelton@sunjournal.com

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