Penobscot Pediatrics will continue care for Newborns

The Bangor Daily News Feb. 19 article, “A Bangor pediatrics group has stopped sending doctors to visit newborns,” may have created confusion within the community. To provide clarity and assurance to our patients and their families, we would like to emphasize our continued commitment to serving newborns and their families.

Penobscot Community Health Care Penobscot Pediatrics, a practice with 15 pediatricians and other pediatric providers, caring for 10,000 patients per year, has provided quality primary care for more than 30 years.

In that time, the demand for pediatric primary care has grown.

In order to continue to provide the finest care for our community’s youngest patients, we knew we needed to make some choices about how to use our resources for the highest and best use.

After careful consideration, PCHC made the decision to stop providing pediatric services in the Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center newborn nursery. This decision means hospital-employed pediatricians will provide initial checkups and routine care to PCHC’s newborn patients within the hospital setting, as they already do for other non-hospital based pediatricians.

This allows our providers more time to focus on providing care within our primary care office. We are still providing quality care to families, just in our own offices instead of the hospital.

It is important that families in the greater Bangor region know their newborns will be cared for no matter the health care setting. The hospital pediatricians at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center will provide care in the newborn nursery during your newborn’s hospital stay. When it is time for the baby to go home, the providers of Penobscot Pediatrics will oversee the health care needs of those infants in our primary care offices.

As always, we look forward to caring for newborns from their first well-child checkup through their childhood and teen years. This decision allows our team of pediatric providers the capacity to provide more access and better care for all of our patients — including newborns and babies — by focusing our care within the setting of outpatient pediatric primary care.

Nationally, the trend is for outpatient providers — like your primary care physician or your child’s pediatrician — to focus on that work and on providing more access for that care.

Another good story about why the shift in workforce models and how it is better care for patients.

PCHC Penobscot Pediatrics will continue to maintain a positive relationship with the pediatric staff at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center, and will work collaboratively for our pediatric patients with more serious health challenges who require in hospital care and specialty visits.

Please rest assured that there will be no gaps in your newborn’s care. Whether it be in the hospital at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center or in the office at PCHC Penobscot Pediatrics, the health and well-being of your baby is our first priority.

Noah Nesin, ND, FAAFP, is the chief medical officer at Penobscot Community Health Care.  He has practiced as a family physician for more than 30 years. Kristen Martin, DO, FAPP is the medical director for Penobscot Pediatrics and has practiced as pediatrician in the Bangor community for more than twelve years.