Evening Must-Read: Noam Levey: In Northern Maine, Collaboration Brings Better Healt

Noam Levey: In northern Maine, collaboration brings better health – latimes.com: “Many of the nation’s healthiest communities are wealthy and have large numbers of college-educated residents.

But northern Maine is among a handful of telling exceptions, making it an important guidepost as the country searches for ways to improve health…. The region now is among America’s poorest…. Yet northern Maine ranks high on national measures of health…. Residents of the region receive recommended screenings and medical care more often than other Americans. They suffer fewer complications in nursing homes and are less frequently prescribed risky medications. And they are nearly half as likely to die from preventable diseases as residents of other low-income areas…. Maine’s success owes much to the type of care that Patterson typifies — intensely personal, data-driven and highly coordinated. The approach grew out of a decades-long effort by local leaders that many experts consider a model for how to improve community health.