Tim Churchill, president and CEO of Western Maine Health, spoke at the Stephens Community Healthcare Foundation annual meeting.

NORWAY — The Stephens Community Healthcare Foundation annual meeting was held on May 15 when board Chairman David Hoisington announced the following new members joining the foundation: Bret and Amy Baker, Jack and Barbara Sours, Jack and Linda French, John and Debora Gillis, Michael and Janet Brogan, Lance and Jennifer Bean, Marc and Kelly West, Michael Mohseni, MD, Alyssa Paetau, MD, Mary Jo Laniewski, DO, and Mark Klemperer, MD.

Foundation members elected Kelly West as community member-at-large trustee, replacing long-term board member, Frank Shorey, whose term expired.

Timothy A. Churchill provided key highlights of Western Maine Health’s FY 2012 achievements, including recruitment of several new physicians, improvement of the overall health status in the Oxford County health rankings from 12th to 16th, implementation of a new oncology patient navigator program and numerous achievements of Western Maine Health entities.

Churchill also announced that a new physician hospitalist program is scheduled to be implemented in late summer, which is expected to increase patient access to the physician offices.

Vance Brown, MD, chief medical officer, MaineHealth, provided a presentation on “Moving Toward Healthcare Value at the Local, Regional and National Levels.” Brown noted that Stephens Memorial Hospital is collaborating with organizations such as Yale-New Haven Hospital and the Mayo Clinic to improve quality and reduce costs through the Northeast Purchasing Coalition.

In FY ’12 Western Maine Health achieved nearly $400,000 in savings through standardization and value analysis. It is the expectation that these initiatives will improve care and reduce costs by identifying and adopting best-practice care models and innovative value-based payment models.

Brown is a graduate of Stanford University and the Yale University School of Medicine and did residency training at Yale-New Haven Hospital, UCLA Medical Center and the University of North Carolina Hospitals.

He has served as the chief medical officer of MaineHealth since 2008. Previously, he was chairman of the Department of Family Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic and has experience in academic medicine and medical operations.