The Growing Portland collaborative has received $50,000 to study the collection of Maine companies involved in the field of health informatics, a high-tech industry at the intersection of health care and information technology, and the prospects for growing that sector of the economy.

The Maine Technology Institute awarded $25,000 to the collaborative, while the other $25,000 was provided by five partners: MaineHealth, Maine Medical Center, InterMed, the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce and Portland-based Winxnet. Portland Mayor Michael Brennan announced the grant at a press conference Wednesday.

Brennan called the grant “historic.”

The funds will allow the Growing Portland collaborative, which was formed in 2013 to help shape the city’s future, to investigate the potential for Maine’s health informatics sector, including cataloging the state’s existing assets, and determining what sort of education programs and resources could be developed to attract workers and investment.

“What we’re trying to do is leverage what we’ve got and turn it into greater economic strength,” said Chris Hall, CEO of the Portland Regional Chamber of Commerce.

There’s also discussion about creating a center for health informatics in greater Portland, according to John Spritz, manager of the collaborative. He said the investigation into Maine’s health informatics sector will be a six-month project.

Spritz admits he was unsure of what health informatics meant a year ago. However, he’s since learned more about the sector and was surprised by the many Maine companies that have a stake in it – from hospitals and other health care providers that use it to improve patient care to technology companies like Winxnet and iVantage Health Analytics in Portland that provide the back-end applications.

Health informatics has become increasingly important as the health care industry uses large amounts of available data to improve health care, and as it shifts to pay doctors based on the quality of care they provide rather than the quantity of services they perform, Spritz said. Since Maine has a small population and an active group of hospitals and health care IT companies, many in the national health care industry are paying attention to Maine’s efforts to use analytics to improve patient care, Spritz said.

Chris Claudio, CEO of Winxnet, said strengthening Maine’s expertise in this sector could make it easier for him to recruit top talent. There’s also an altruistic reason, he said.
“The more people we have working on this stuff, the better the outcomes for patients,” he said.

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