There are people like Brenda Duggan in nine hospitals in northern and eastern Maine, thanks to a grant from the Maine Health Alliance, a nonprofit health care provider based in Bangor.

There is much more to her job than connecting residents with indigent drug programs, although that is probably the biggest part of her work.

Under the umbrella of disease management, she also helps them find the social services they need, whether it is an agency that can provide free transportation to doctor appointments or a volunteer organization that brings hot meals to the elderly. She helps them quit smoking, get flu shots, find wheelchairs – whatever it takes to help keep them out of the hospital.

Besides Maine Coast Memorial Hospital in Ellsworth, there are disease management specialists at Calais Regional Hospital, Millinocket Regional Hospital, St. Joseph Hospital in Bangor, Cary Medical Center in Caribou, Down East Community Hospital in Machias, Mayo Regional Hospital in Dover-Foxcroft, Northern Maine Medical Center in Fort Kent and Mount Desert Hospital in Bar Harbor.

Statistics show the approach is working. Maine Health Alliance executive director Bill Diggans said the alliance’s disease management program, which is in its fifth year of existence, has reduced emergency room visits by 25 percent, cut hospital admissions by 55 percent, and decreased the length of hospital stays by 50 percent.

The program is an alternative to the way insurance companies and health management organizations have traditionally operated. Instead of talking on the telephone with a customer service representative they’ve never met, clients speak directly with someone like Duggan – someone who lives in their community, visits them regularly, knows their physicians, and understands their medical issues.

“It’s done better, we believe, closer to home by someone who knows the community,” Diggans said. “Our effort is to try to redirect that whole concentration back to the community, where our patients live and where our doctors live.”

Finding less expensive prescription drugs is a critical piece of the disease management model.

“The biggest hurdle in treatment of chronic disease is pharmaceutical,” he said. “The expense is just so staggering to a great many people.”