OXFORD — Aunt Bertha Community Connections is a summer project taking place in the Oxford Hills area focused on improving the ability to connect people to community resources that support health. A small team of inter-professional students will be working to improve a resource directory called Aunt Bertha, by identifying resources and getting more organizations plugged into the directory. We hope this allows everyone in the community to connect where they most need to!

Aunt Bertha sounds like a nice lady, but it’s is actually a software platform that connects people to resources. Community members can use a website to look for resources within many categories, and can narrow the results to see the programs which are the best matches. For example, one can look in the Health category for in-home support resources, and narrow the results by age, health status (pregnant, chronically ill, etc), disability type (limited mobility, developmentally delayed, etc) and more. Some community resources are already listed in the Aunt Bertha platform, which you can see by visiting www.mainehealth.auntbertha.com.

The software can also be used by healthcare providers to refer their patients to the resources which best match their needs. Even better, when a community organization “claims” their free listing in Aunt Bertha (essentially setting up a free account), healthcare providers and community organizations are linked through the software, which makes it easier to communicate about the people that they’re both working to serve. This new tool and project are important because a large part of what makes a person healthy happens outside of a doctor’s office. Western Maine is filled with important resources to support health, and Aunt Bertha will help to make it easier to find and access those resources. It will also help doctors to refer their patients to the resources and services they need, and for the community organizations providing that help to see incoming referrals. These improvements help to “close the loop” in a referral process, increasing the number of people who access these programs.

Local high school and college students employed by the summer project will be working to make the list of resources as complete as possible by scouring local communities to make sure that all relevant organizations and programs are listed, from food pantries to counseling agencies to transportation programs. The students will also be reaching out to community organizations to introduce them to Aunt Bertha and assist with claiming free listings in the directory. A medical student will work with Western Maine Health practices on streamlining the use of Aunt Bertha by healthcare providers.

The project is being coordinated by the Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation at Maine Medical Center, Western Maine Health, Healthy Oxford Hills, and Maine Medical Center Healthcare Careers Pipeline Program.