Maui Memorial Received $85,000 Health Care Coordination Grant

Maui Memorial Medical Center, courtesy photo.

By Sonia Isotov

The Maui Memorial Medical Center (MMMC) has been awarded a Rural Health Network Development Planning Grant of $85,000 from the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to support the formation of a network to improve health care integration on Maui.

The funds will be utilized by MMMC, Hale Makua Health Services (HMHS) and Community Clinic of Maui, dba Malama I Ke Ola Health Center (CCM) to collectively address the current and future needs of the island’s aging population efficiently, appropriately and cost effectively.

“The efforts made by the staff at Maui Memorial Medical Center have paid off for the benefit of the entire community and I congratulate them for their hard work,” said Governor Neil Abercrombie, in a written statement. “This grant will be put to good use and help those who need it the most.”

Cardiovascular services, Maui Memorial Medcial Center. Courtesy photo.

The Rural Health Network Development Planning Grant Program brings together key parts of a rural health care delivery system on Maui so these organizations can work together to establish or improve local capacity and coordination of care, particularly those entities that may not have collaborated in the past.

The major focus of the grant program is to support rural entities in the development of health care networks.

HMHS has long-term care and skilled nursing home beds and is able to accommodate MMMC’s waitlisted patients. These are patients that no longer need acute care but are still in need of skilled nursing or long-term care.

At present, HMHS has difficulty accepting these patients due to the challenges of caring for patients with special needs, limited physician resources and low reimbursement.

CCM has discharge planning and care coordination resources that can support the network’s activities and objectives.  Funding from this HRSA grant will support the facilitation of a gap assessment to address these and other challenges in the current delivery system, as well as explore strategies to strengthen the continuum of care from acute to the post-acute settings.