Northern Light Healthcare Foundation

EMHS Foundation d/b/a Northern Light Health Foundation raised and managed funds for the benefit of Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center and other affiliated exempt entities in northern, eastern and southern Maine.

Acadia for AllEmerald Forcier is walking an aisle of gleaming white chairs carefully set on a lush green lawn overlooking the Penobscot River. Her husband, Kurt is hustling along on a lawn tractor, making sure the lawn is short and neat for the upcoming wedding the couple plans to host at their venue, Penobscot Bay Weddings in Winterport. As her four-year-old daughter, Maisie picks wildflowers, Forcier is holding her 8-month-old son Miles in her arms while she thinks about all the work she has left to do in the wedding tent. I often say to friends and family when they ask how I'm doing, I'm like, I am exhausted. We're starting a new business. And yet the deep, important things are wonderful.But seven years ago, things were not wonderful for Forcier in terms of her mental health. She was living on the island of Bali; she was having difficulty getting the medications to manage her depression, and she was in a suicidal state. She moved back to the United States and attended an inpatient treatment program, which she credits with saving her life. After six months of hard work restarting her life, she was back in Maine, but her health insurance was due to expire at the beginning of the new year. Despite spending four weeks consistently trying, Forcier could not access any outpatient provider to renew her prescriptions. Desperate for help, she ended up in a hospital emergency department on New Year's Eve 2015. Even then, she was sent away multiple times because psychiatric care was not available.I remember what it was like when I had reached my rock bottom and I needed inpatient services. I also remember the fear and helplessness of being stuck in the emergency department, unable to access the care I needed. I frankly cannot even imagine the terror and the sadness of experiencing both of these things at once. The day a person needs inpatient care is one of the worst days of their life. To be stuck in an emergency department with nowhere to go is a devastating experience far too many people face, and I cannot imagine a child or their parent going through that.Forcier's experience is unfortunately all too common. Across Maine, there simply are not enough inpatient beds and people who end up in crisis situations turn to hospital emergency departments.Nadia Mendiola, MD, an adolescent psychiatrist at Northern Light Acadia Hospital, sees it all too often. She says it's particularly troubling when children get stuck in these emergency departments for several weeks, or even months, waiting for an inpatient bed. Emergency care physicians, they're wonderful at their job but they're not psychiatrists. They have limited options, they have limited space, and you're talking about kids who can't even function in a big home or a big school and now you're confining them to a little spot. It's just not conducive to good care.This is one of the reasons why Northern Light Acadia Hospital is undertaking an ambitious expansion project to double the number of its single occupancy rooms. The 50,000 square feet expansion will add 50 pediatric inpatient rooms as well as new group and individual treatment spaces. The 50 existing inpatient rooms are being remodeled to single occupancy, adult inpatient rooms to better meet current behavioral healthcare standards.Acadia President Scott Oxley knows the expansion is needed. Unfortunately, the kids we see today are sicker than they were 30 years ago, so we need more circulation space, more room for group therapies. And really, our existing facility does not accommodate that, shares Oxley.In addition to the new inpatient rooms, there will also be an expansion of the Mood and Memory clinic for patients with Alzheimer's disease and dementia, and an endowment created for workforce development, recruitment, and retention. All this work requires substantial investment, and Oxley says community support thus far has been exceptional.Long term, the key to our success is early detection, early intervention, keeping folks in their communities, and keeping them out of the highest level of care. The reality is there's such a shortage of inpatient beds, that the need is urgent for inpatient beds while we work strategically and collaboratively on the longer-term plan.For more information about the Capital Campaign go to northernlight.org/AcadiaForAll Donors have given generously to the Acadia for All campaign including the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation which donated one million dollars.

Please see the following excerpt from the Northern Light Health Annual Report 2022 to the Community for details of community benefit projects by NLH members.Northern Light HealthPromisesAnnual Report 2022A promise made must be a promise kept. - AristotleWhen people keep their promises to us, we feel valued, respected, and appreciated. At Northern Light Health, we understand the importance of making a promise and doing the work to keep it.Our promise to the people and communities we serve across our great state of Maine is to make healthcare work for you. This means that we promise to get better every day by raising quality through teamwork, efficiency, and innovation. We promise to guide the way for our patients and their families, through the care experience. We live in a big, rural state, and we know access to care can be challenging for some people in our communities. So, we are committed to improving access. And last, but certainly not least, we promise to see patients as diverse individuals with their own unique needs.In this annual report, we highlight the ways our valued employees and community partners are working together to keep our promises to the communities we serve. From helping firefighters access lung cancer studies at world-class research hospitals, to helping busy parents schedule pediatrics appointments on their own time, and using the latest in diagnostic technology to help people with congestive heart failure stay out of the hospital. We are also helping the state address a critical shortage of psychiatric inpatient beds while addressing the state's long-term community-based mental and behavioral health needs.These stories in this report are just a few examples of the promises we work hard to keep every day. This work inspires us. We hope it inspires you too.Timothy J. Dentry, MBAPresident & CEONorthern Light HealthKathy CoreyBoard ChairNorthern Light Health