Bingham Program

About The Bingham Program is a charitable endowment established in 1932 to promote health and advance medicine in Maine. It is administered by Tufts Medical Center — formerly New England Medical Center (NEMC) — with the guidance of an Advisory Committee comprised of six Maine residents and three representatives from Tufts Medical Center. Morgan Hynd is the Director of the Bingham Program, and works from an office based in Warren, Maine. The Bingham Program has assets of approximately $14 million and distributes an estimated $550,000 in grants annually. All of our work is focused on creating a healthy Maine. The early focus of The Bingham Program was to improve health service delivery in Maine, particularly in rural areas. For its first several decades, the Program fostered a three-pronged approach to scarcity of health care resources in Maine: Maine-based postgraduate instruction for rural physicians provided by NEMC physician instructors, tailored courses for Maine physicians at NEMC, and provision of training facilities and experiences for other health care professionals. These activities were eventually integrated into a regionalized program through linkages between the small community hospitals in Maine, regional medical centers in Maine’s urban areas, and the Boston base—NEMC and the Tufts Medical School. The Bingham Program activities in Maine drew national attention. In 1967, the U.S. Congress established the Regional Medical Program (RMP), based on the Bingham model of medical education delivered to rural areas through regional collaboration of medical institutions. Millions of dollars flowed to states to replicate the Bingham model—Maine secured $8 million, which helped foster the development of medical and dental training programs in Maine as well as community service programs to address specific health issues. The RMP funds provided the foundation for much of the current health infrastructure in Maine today. Much of our work over the past 15 years has been to increase awareness across multiple sectors of the long-term beneficial results of positive childhood experiences (PCEs) and we see the prevention of adverse childhood experiences and the promotion of PCEs as key to creating healthy Maine people and a healthy Maine economy. In November, 2016, the Bingham advisory committee decided to continue to focus on this work for the next 10 years. In 2017, the Bingham Program Advisory Committee also decided to invest a significant amount of financial and staff resources to convene experts to envision an improved public health system for Maine. This work has evolved with the election of a new Governor in 2019, and continues in the form of an advisory group that works together to leverage opportunities to improve public health infrastructure and to identify sustainable sources of funding for public health. Our Initiatives Health Professions Development Educational and demonstration projects that promote the efficient delivery of appropriate and quality care (e.g. education for health professionals, models of improved service delivery, health workforce planning). Community Health Programs Community-based efforts to promote health and wellness, with special emphasis on programs for high risk and underserved groups (e.g. healthy community coalitions, model prevention efforts, consumer health projects). Public Health Policy Development Improving Maine’s capacity to identify patterns of illness and health, design appropriate population-based services, and develop adequate policies to promote health and prevent disease.