LEWISTON – An appropriations bill approved by Congress includes more than $2.3 million for health care and education programs in Maine, including money for St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center and Central Maine Community College in Auburn.

Money also will go to mental health programs for children, a program that provides new books to low-income children and job training for women.

U.S. Sens. Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins, both Maine Republicans, announced the funding in a joint statement.

The money will enable Mainers in rural communities to get better access to health care through technology, they said in the statement.

The federal funding includes:

• $155,000 for St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center for a patient safety and outcomes improvement project. The hospital will invest in automated patient data technology and an automated medication and dispensing system, medical records technology, and wellness and best practice programs to reduce morbidity and mortality rates.

• $102,000 for Central Maine Community College for nursing education expansion and outreach. In response to the growing, critical need for registered nurses in Maine, the college will use this funding to update and expand the nursing education facility and equipment on campus, and to extend the program off campus to students living in areas at a distance from the main campus. The money will address the need for more classroom space, larger and more up-to-date labs, and greater computerization and simulation to more closely approximate the technology being used in hospitals.

• $192,000 for Central Maine Community College for a training program in precision metalworking and machine tool technology.

• $95,000 for the Spurwink Institute to improve child mental health services in Maine, including expansion of its efforts to improve early detection of depression and autism, train a select group of licensed and certified professionals to work with families and care givers of autistic children and improve access for mental health clients.

• $95,000 for First Book’s Maine Rural Outreach Initiative to give children from low-income families the opportunity to read and own their first new books.

• $479,000 for Maine Women Work and Community for a women’s work force training and development program.

Other programs that received funding are in Eagle Lake, Ellsworth, Presque Isle, Princeton, Portland, Bar Harbor, Augusta, Orono and Belfast.