$85,000 Grant to Improve Maui Health Care Delivery

Maui Memorial Medical Center courtesy image, MMMC.

By Wendy Osher

The Maui Memorial Medical Center is the recipient of an $85,000 grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services to improve health care integration on Maui.

The funds will be utilized by the hospital’s Hale Makua Health Services and Malama I Ke Ola Health Center to address the needs of the island’s aging population.

“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. “This grant will be put to good use and help those who need it the most,” he said.

Community Clinic of Maui, operating as Malama I Ke Ola Health Center, photo by Wendy Osher.

The Rural Health Network Development Planning Grant Program is designed to bring together key parts of a rural health care delivery system on Maui.  The organizations will work together to establish or improve capacity and coordination of care.

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

Hale Makua’s long-term care and skilled nursing home beds will be able to accommodate, non-acute care patients that are wait-listed at the Maui Memorial Medical Center.

Hospital officials say Hale Makua currently has difficulty accepting these patients due to the challenges of caring for patients with special needs, limited physician resources and low reimbursement.

The discharge planning and care coordination offered at the Community Clinic of Maui (operating as Malama I Ke Ola Health Center) will be used to support the network’s activities and objectives.

Grant funding will support the facilitation of a gap assessment to address these and other challenges in the current delivery system.  It will also enable the exploration of strategies to strengthen the continuum of care from acute to the post-acute settings.