RUMFORD – Sandy Bouchard and Sharon Gates are pursuing their dreams and better heart health for the people around them. The two registered nurses, who have worked at Rumford Hospital 25 and 30 years respectively, are staffing the new Cardiovascular Health Improvement Program. Bouchard and Gates, however, are hoping the acronym CHIP will catch on.

CHIP is funded through a $182,796 two-year grant to Rumford Hospital from the Maine Health Access Foundation. CHIP will provide ScoreKeeper heart health screening, education and follow-up to 2,500 uninsured or underserved people.

Bouchard and Gates are learning the ScoreKeeper computer software that will help them evaluate people’s heart health risk and develop action plans to improve their heart health.

CHIP is a part-time job for both nurses. Bouchard and Gates will continue to work at the hospital. Bouchard was eager to join CHIP because the last few months of working at Swift River Health Care have made her realize just how many people have no insurance or no way to pay for preventive health care.

“They have no money and Medicaid doesn’t cover a lot,” she said. “I jumped at the chance to work in the program so I can educate people and help them live longer, healthier lives.”

Gates has worked in LifeStrides, the cardiac rehabilitation program at Rumford Hospital, for the last year-and-a-half. There she discovered that she loved the teaching aspect of nursing, helping people develop lifestyle changes following their heart disease diagnoses. “CHIP is meant to keep people out of cardiac rehab by preventing heart disease,” she said, “and prevention is important.”

ScoreKeeper was developed in Franklin County by Dr. Burgess Record and his wife, Sandy Record, RN. It has proved successful in preventing heart disease and lowering the mortality associated with it in that county’s high-risk population.

“We want the people of northern Oxford County to have these same advantages when it comes to cardiovascular health-knowledge of their risk for heart disease and education to help lower that risk,” said Bob Armstrong, CHIP’s project director and Central Maine Health Care’s director of rural health planning and long-term care. He was instrumental in obtaining the grant.

As soon as Bouchard and Gates are trained as ScoreKeeper heart health evaluators, they will begin by assessing the heart health of all members of the Rumford Community Home staff who choose to undertake the ScoreKeeper evaluation.

They will also invite staff’s adult family members and the family members of residents at the home. Next, they will move on to the Rumford Hospital staff before widening their reach into the northern Oxford County community.

Their new office is located in a small room at Rumford Community Home, and they share two meeting rooms where they will be able to conduct evaluations. The home installed air conditioners in the meeting rooms and freshened the walls with artwork.

“They have been very welcoming,” said Armstrong. “Both the staff of Rumford Community Home and of the Central Maine Heart and Vascular Institute have demonstrated great support for our new CHIP office.”