AHEC - Improving Access to Quality Health Services
Guest post contributed by Sonya Connelly, Community Outreach Coordinator
Healthy Acadia is thrilled to be partnering with the University of New England to serve as Eastern Maine’s Area Health Education Center (AHEC), covering Washington, Hancock, Knox, and Waldo counties. Additional centers are located in Northern Maine, Western Maine, and at UNE’s Maine Program Office.
The mission of Maine AHEC is to enhance health equity and reduce health disparities among underserved populations through team and community-based experiential education and strategic partnerships. Maine AHECs provide community-based clinical training experiences to health professions students; encourage Maine youth to pursue careers in the health professions; offer training and continuing education programs to practicing health professionals; and develop public health approaches to address current and emerging community needs.
Eastern AHEC’s focus is to:
Create rural health immersion opportunities for health professions students to learn more about rural and underserved communities.
Build pathways for middle and high school students to experience health careers while encouraging them to pursue post-secondary education in healthcare fields.
Support graduate-level health professions students to gain the leadership skills to succeed in their future healthcare fields, with a rural emphasis.
Collaborate with healthcare partners to provide continuing education programs.
We’d like to highlight the experiences we’ve created in 2023 to further our AHEC mission:
We created three Rural Health Immersions throughout the year focused in Hancock and Washington counties. Fourteen students visited health professionals, and leaders in the communities, as well as experienced the beauty of the area.
We also hosted a virtual panel of three health professionals who shared their educational and work experiences with a group of Washington County middle school students. The goal was for students to learn about health-related careers as a potential pathway for their futures and to encourage training and education in the health field.
Throughout the year, Eastern AHEC had the honor of supporting 8 medical and PA students in their enhanced rotations at MDI Hospital. We offered them opportunities to engage with community partner agencies that work alongside local hospital and healthcare facilities to care for our communities.
What’s next for Eastern AHEC? We are currently planning a Rural Health Immersion to take place in Waldo County in 2024 with AHEC Scholars from UNE’s dental and physical therapy programs. We look forward to sharing highlights next quarter!
For more information or to discuss partnership opportunities, please contact:
Maria Donahue, MPH, MSW
Director of Eastern Maine AHEC, Healthy Acadia, (207) 667-7171 ext 214, or maria@healthyacadia.org. You can also visit, https://healthyacadia.org/hpm-ahec, to learn more about Healthy Acadia’s AHEC program.
AHEC is supported with funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
March RHI 2023
Eastern AHEC FOCUS