Sustaining a Commitment to Excellence

(The following excerpts are from the 2011 Tri-County Annual Report. The complete report is available here.)

Treatment Highlights

• Continued commitment to evidence-based Integrated Treatment Services for persons with co-occurring mental illness and substance use.

• Continued commitment to evidence-based Day Programs designed to assist consumers in the development of independent living skills, symptom management skills, advocacy skills and community integration.

• Supported the transformational RESPECT Program which is designed to help consumers tell their own personal stories regarding their experience living with a mental illness. Our consumers presented their stories to hundreds of community members at local schools, churches, civic groups and other mental health organizations.

• Continued commitment to evidence-based Employment Services for those with a serious mental illness. Over 30  percent of our applicants became gainfully employed while the outcome findings by DMH on behalf of Dartmouth University improved by 50 percent.

• Continued our commitment to Disease Management with a focus on care coordination for our consumers with co-occurring behavioral and chronic physical conditions. Prevention services included smoking cessation, diabetes management, asthma education, and enhanced medication management.

• Collaborated with other area CMHCs and local hospitals on a Hospital Diversion Initiative with goals and outcomes of reduced hospital inpatient and emergency department utilization, reduced psychiatric inpatient recidivism and decreased mental illness symptoms. The program resulted in $17,814 savings per referral.

• Thanks to additional funding from the Levy Board, expanded outpatient substance use programming to Richmond, Missouri, thereby providing enhanced access and improved program capacity by 50  percent. Similarly, adolescent substance abuse treatment programs were expanded to Platte County. In addition, the highly successful Drug Courts of Clay and Ray Counties are now being replicated in Platte County.

Wellness Highlights

• Our nationally recognized Prevention Program, in concert with Northland Coalition and Youth With Vision, continued its public education and advocacy efforts. In collaboration with law enforcement, prosecutors and drug lab experts provided our State Legislators with public policy information regarding the risks of synthetic drugs, ultimately leading to a statute to outlaw these synthetics. Provided over 50 community education forums and prevention presentations focusing on the need to reduce substance use and violence in our Northland schools. These forums supplemented public service announcements, billboards, cinema ads and articles with similar goals of addressing temptation and the challenges facing our youth.

• Initiated an agency-wide Wellness Program for both consumers and associates. Began preparation for a tobacco-free environment while fostering healthy eating habits, healthy vending machines and providing incentives for participation in organized activities and exercise.

Infrastructure Highlights

• To foster cost-effective continuing education for all Northland mental health professionals, partnered with Saint Luke’s Northland to provide quality trainings on such topics as Integrated Dual Diagnosis Treatment, Assessing and Managing Suicide Risk and Addressing Ethical Dilemmas.

• Progress toward electronic health records in a paperless fashion has proceeded rapidly. Electronic scheduling, billing and progress notes are well under way. Electronic treatment plans are next on the horizon which will result in totally electronic, paperless charts. This progress makes the agency eligible for Meaningful Use designation by state authorities.

In Closing

It’s been a busy, productive, and rewarding year.  We have much for which to be proud, but we have much more to do to better serve the behavioral health needs of the Northland. We are committed to adapting to the changing landscape as we strive to continue to offer hope to those in need by expanding our scope of services by building on the successes we have achieved to date.

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