Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems announced on Wednesday that it has signed a clinical affiliation agreement with Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
The agreement means Mainers in the northern half of the state will have access to Mass General’s clinical resources, providing high-level medical expertise not readily available in the Bangor area to patients of Eastern Maine Medical Center.
“Massachusetts General Hospital is a world-class teaching and research hospital,” Matt Weed, senior vice president for strategy and marketing at Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, said. “Where Maine is so close to Massachusetts, being able to take advantage of their expertise is great for us and the patients we serve.”
Massachusetts General, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, is about a 4-hour drive from Bangor, but Weed said many Maine patients will benefit from the affiliation without having to make the trip.
For some time, Weed said, Massachusetts General has provided adolescent psychiatric consulting at Acadia Hospital in Bangor, EMMC’s sister institution under the EMHS umbrella, through a remote telemedicine service. The newly formalized affiliation will lead to more telemedicine opportunities, he said, including a “tele-stroke” service connecting emergency department patients at EMMC and other regional hospitals who have suffered a stroke with Massachusetts General neurology experts.
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