06/16/2026
Community Care Partnership of Maine (CCPM) announced $940,000 in new philanthropic funding to launch a Rural Healthcare Workforce Learning & Clinical Implementation Hub, expanding access to training and upskilling opportunities for healthcare workers across Maine. CCPM is a clinically integrated network and accountable care organization comprised of 22 nonprofit healthcare organizations statewide — including 17 Federally Qualified Health Centers and five community and critical access hospitals — collectively serving nearly one quarter of Maine's population.
Over the next 12 months, the funding will enable CCPM to expand a centralized Learning Management System (LMS), strengthen clinical mentorship programs, and coordinate hands-on training that helps healthcare workers extend their skills and deliver more advanced care, including point-of-care ultrasounds, in their own communities.
"Our member organizations are committed to serving their communities, often while navigating significant workforce challenges," said Sandy Nesin, Esq., Chief Executive Officer of CCPM. "This investment allows us to work alongside them in offering enhanced training, implementation support, and evidence-based resources that strengthen care teams, improve patient outcomes, and help ensure high-quality healthcare remains accessible in communities across Maine."
Supporting a Locally Rooted Rural Workforce
Maine's rural health workforce faces persistent shortages, with clinicians and staff often managing complex patient needs across large geographic areas with limited resources. CCPM's Learning & Clinical Implementation Hub is designed to retain, grow, and upskill a locally rooted workforce so rural residents can access primary and specialty care close to home.
Through the hub, CCPM will:
• Expand and customize a centralized LMS to deliver virtual, asynchronous, and hybrid training for rural care teams
• Provide longitudinal clinical and operational mentorship to medical directors, nurses, medical assistants, care managers, and operations leaders across more than 20 healthcare organizations
• Offer targeted tools, certifications, and hands-on learning in areas including point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS), diabetic retinopathy screening, chronic disease management, community paramedicine, and leadership development
• Convene network-wide learning communities and professional development summits focused on upskilling all care team members, including medical assistants and care managers
Building on Proven Innovations
The hub builds on CCPM's established infrastructure as a convenor for rural Maine healthcare organizations. CCPM has already delivered educational toolkits on cancer screening, blood pressure control, and population health, and developed curricula covering heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes, and hypertension — serving hundreds of providers and care team members statewide.
CCPM also facilitates virtual specialist "curbside" consultations, a quick, secure doctor-to-doctor model giving primary care providers real-time access to specialists across more than 30 disciplines. To date, CCPM has supported more than 5,000 curbside consults for nearly 300 primary care providers, preventing over 1,900 unnecessary specialist and emergency department visits and saving more than $1 million in healthcare costs.
"This new investment will be instrumental in providing our staff access to high-quality training, coaching, and resources that we simply could not build alone," said Dinah Moyer, Executive Director of Islands Community Medical Services (ICMS), a Federally Qualified Health Center located on Vinalhaven Island, 12 miles off the coast of Penobscot Bay, and a board member of CCPM. "Through this initiative, we will gain access to equipment and training for things like point-of-care ultrasounds, which will help us provide high-quality care to our community without patients having to leave the island. This work is helping us meet the needs of our community today and into the future."
To learn more, visit ccpmaine.org.
