Lakes Region Mental Health Center (LRMHC) is the recipient of a $25,000 grant awarded by the Meredith Village Savings Bank Fund which makes grants every year to local non-profits that make a significant impact upon the lives of people. The grant-making process seeks to benefit a wide range of environmental, social, educational, economic development, cultural, arts and historic projects throughout the local region.
The primary challenge facing almost every healthcare provider is having adequate service delivery capacity to support timely and effective access to treatment. In an era of integrated healthcare reform, access to treatment is even more critical. In the next few months, LRMHC will be implementing a new initiative; SAME DAY ACCESS which is an engagement strategy whereby organizations offer an assessment on the same day it is requested by the consumer, without a scheduling delay or waitlist, resulting in an eradication of consumer no shows for assessments. LRMHC has contracted with MTM Services, who has helped 800 publicly funded, private not-for-profit and private for-profit physical and specialty healthcare providers and state departments in 46 states, Washington, DC and two foreign countries, manage transformational change and increase capacity to deliver critical services to the most vulnerable populations.
“Implementing SAME DAY ACCESS will significantly improve our capacity to serve more individuals who are in need of services,” said Maggie Pritchard, Chief Executive Officer for LRMHC. “We will be able to offer blocks of time when patients are invited to walk in and have an intake assessment completed by a clinician and at least one goal of the treatment plan based on the patient’s presenting problem. The patient then leaves the office with a therapy appointment and a psychiatric evaluation appointment (if warranted). The grant funds will be used to support the purchase of technology needed to automate current paper workflows, the investment of IT resources needed to rewrite code, build Electronic Medical Record (EMR) integration programs and conduct data mapping for the project and conduct all-staff and management training on new data processes, procedures and outcome measurement protocols.”
“Meredith Village Savings Bank has been a long-time supporter of the important work that we do at LRMHC and we are grateful for their contribution to organizations like ours that provide support for individuals and families in challenging circumstances,” said Pritchard.