Established in 1966, Androscoggin Home Care & Hospice has been completely dedicated to patient comfort, satisfaction, health and well-being. The organization provides a continuum of home-based community health care ranging from skilled nursing for patients recently discharged from a hospital, often post-surgery or those new to medications; chronic disease management; supportive care for assistance with the activities of daily living; palliative and end-of-life care for patients in their own homes or in the Hospice House. There is comprehensive bereavement support for adult, children and teenaged family members. Androscoggin Home Care & Hospice is Maine’s largest independent home health and hospice agency with a service area that encompasses 122 municipalities, plantations and unorganized territories, a staff of nearly 400 and an essential volunteer corps of more than 250 individuals, and networks with more than 375 referring physicians.

In order to optimize patient clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction, AHCH has just completed the first of a two-year effort to evaluate and improve every element of patient care. The core of the initiative is M.O.D.E.L. care. Its purpose is to provide a meaningful, organized, developed, efficient/effective patient visit with lasting quality. The process documents patient outcomes and is yielding positive results for a series of publically reported benchmarks that hold every member of the organization accountable for excellence.

AHCH was also selected to function as the Community Care Team in the prestigious national pilot program called Patient Centered Medical Homes and the state equivalent Health Homes initiative.

Established as a component of the Affordable Care Act, PCMH in Maine provides comprehensive case management, care coordination, health promotion and access to preventative services, chronic disease management and long-term care to Medicare and MaineCare patients. In describing the State program, The MaineCare website states, “There is growing agreement that transforming the health care system requires strong systems for providing patient-centered, relationship-based primary care. The Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) model offers an exciting and promising approach to this change as it supports both the practice transformation and payment reform needed to improve primary care services.”

To implement PCMH, AHCH has partnered with over 40 physician practices throughout its tri-county coverage area (Androscoggin, Oxford and Franklin counties) to help provide superior patient care while reducing costs. In just the first year, patients in the program were able to reduce reliance on emergency room care by an astonishing 60 percent, while the overall hospital admission rate among patients in the program was 51 percent lower than for those with more traditional access to healthcare services.

“The PCMH program has already been an enormous success,” said Julie Shackley, Androscoggin’s CEO, “and it came along at a perfect time for us, because its objectives align perfectly with the quality improvement initiatives we had undertaken on our own. We’re thrilled to have contributed so much to these wonderful outcomes.”

In addition to its participation in the PCMH initiative, AHCH has in the past year expanded Compass Care, Palliative care program that is provided by a team of healthcare professionals who focus on reducing the severity of symptoms and side effects of a chronic or life-limiting illness. The organization also launched the Forget Me Not program for Alzheimer’s patients in facilities to encourage socialization.

AHCH is a private, nonprofit healthcare provider, and while it has always been able to achieve a revenue surplus, reductions in federal funding for some healthcare services are subjecting the organization to new financial pressures.

“We’ve known that this would be coming for the past few years, and we’ve been able to plan for it,” Shackley said. “We’ve achieved really significant cost reductions. But,” she added, “we simply can’t rely on the old models of paying for healthcare. We have to continue to be innovative.”

And, Shackley explained, fundraising is becoming more important each year, too. “We can’t rely on the state, federal or private insurance, for that matter, to keep up with escalating costs. So we find ourselves asking more and more for help from the communities and families we serve,” Shackley said, “and there are lots of ways for folks to participate.”

Annual gifts have provided nearly $100,000 in each of the past dozen years, primarily from friends and family, in addition to one-time contributions from patients and families expressing profound gratitude for the care they or their loved one received during an illness, those who “believe in our mission to relieve suffering and meet the needs of those who are ill, injured or at end of life by offering hope and healing in an environment of trust, compassion and care.”

A number of public fundraising events have been expanding in the past couple of years, too, including the Hospice House 5K Remembrance Walk-Run, this year with venues in Farmington (May 5), South Paris (May 18), and with a certified course at Central Maine Community College, in Auburn (May 19). Having experienced the wonderful care provided by the Hospice House staff and knowing that not everyone has health insurance or resources to pay for services, a local family established this event in 2009. Their wish is that care is available to all who need it, and by eliminating the worry of how it would be paid for, patients can live their final days focusing on what is truly important.

A unique and powerful memorial event is the annual Butterfly Release Celebration, this year scheduled for Saturday, July 20, on the campus of the Hospice House, Stetson Road in Auburn. The event provides the opportunity to remember and honor loved ones by dedicating a butterfly in their name. The event is open to anyone who has experienced a loss, not just for people who have benefitted from AHCH hospice services. The Celebration is full of heartfelt music and song; crafts for our youngest guests; reading of the names of those being remembered; and it culminates with the release of colorful Monarch butterflies.

Androscoggin Home Care & Hospice has been dedicated to the patients and communities it serves for more than 47 years, and increasingly, its patients and families are demonstrating that they are equally committed to helping preserve and extend the special care provided by this vital organization.

For more information on any of the programs outlined in this article or to learn how you can get involved please call 207-777-7740 or log onto our website at WWW.AHCH.Org.