These 15 health care agencies are located in America's easternmost and some of its poorest and most isolated rural Counties. RMCL is a non-profit agency which provides a wide range of outpatient health care services in a number of locations in the County including medical, dental, counseling, child care, home health care, telemedicine, patient education, substance abuse and many other community prevention and education programs. RMCL is developing telemedicine services and networks for Maine. It has already installed approximately 40 telemedicine sites in eastern and northern Maine and will shortly install another 30 units in schools for distance learning and in the Maine Department of Human Services. The DownEast Telemedicine Network will significantly help to build a real care system based on the trust involved in management of a collaborative telemedicine network.
Poverty is a harsh reality throughout the region.
RUS funding will be used to provide a distance learning and telemedicine network that will connect west central Maine to a statewide network and offer future expandability. The specialties of cardiology, endocrinology and oncology are expected to follow quickly behind. It has 100 employees and a budget of over four million dollars. The project will provide a ling-term infrastructure to telemedicine for a telemedicine network. The Regional Medical Center At Lubec, Inc. will use home based cameras and TVs to monitor the elderly and save needless trips to the hospital.