CARIBOU, Maine — Aroostook Mental Health Center has been selected to serve on a national Advancing Health Equity Learning Collaborative, a component of the Advancing Health Equity: Leading Care, Payment, and Systems Transformation program funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Lorraine Chamberlain, program director of integration and behavioral health in Aroostook County, will represent AMHC.
“It is an honor for AMHC to be chosen to participate in this collaborative,” said Ellen Bemis, AMHC CEO. “Our organization works daily with individuals who experience health disparities including poverty, discrimination, and lack of access to education, housing and healthcare resources. With 37 years of experience in mental health, substance use and crisis services, Lorraine will be a tremendous voice and advocate in leading this transformational work to advance health equity at the national level.”
Representatives from state Medicaid agencies, Medicaid health plans, and health care organizations from Maine, Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Washington were competitively selected to work together to reduce health disparities. For the next two years the group will convene to design integrated health care delivery and payment models to reduce health disparities and then implement these efforts at health care delivery organizations and surrounding communities.
“This is the first attempt that we know of to bring together these three stakeholder groups to identify common goals for advancing health equity and then work together to implement them. We are excited about the potential of this project,” noted Andrea Ducas, senior program officer at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Celebrating 55 years, AMHC is a nonprofit organization supporting approximately 6,000 clients annually. The agency has 20 service sites and 325 employees located across Aroostook, Washington, and Hancock counties providing mental health, substance use, crisis and sexual assault services.
For more information, connect with AMHC at www.amhc.org.
