Is your hospital truly meeting the needs of the community?

There is a growing healthcare problem in our country's rural communities. It is estimated that over 50% of the U.S. population will experience a mental illness in their lifetime. Mental illness is not bound by age, race, gender, or even community populations, and for years treatment for residents in rural communities has been minimal at best. Pioneer Health Services' Behavioral Health Programs were developed precisely to change this fact. Our service locations reside in cities with an average estimated population under 5,000. With the success that Pioneer gained in its own local markets, the company developed a specialized Behavioral Health Program for use in Critical Access Hospitals across the nation. Our program offers CAH facilities the ability to incorporate behavioral health into their medical services mix either by turn-key contracted services or project specific consulting.

Inpatient Geropsych Unit

is a program that provides an intensive treatment for older adults that have been diagnosed with acute psychiatric disorders. The patients suffering from these illnesses require the treatment of the Geropsych unit to provide them with a safe, non-threatening, structured approach to their stabilization. The unit provides an interdisciplin-ary team approach to treatment and is designed to treat individuals who have a variety of psychiatric and medical diagnosis from all backgrounds. Treatment provided includes individual, family, and group therapy along with health education and psycho educational groups. All patients are encouraged to participate in therapies in order to gain an optimum level of functioning while in the program.

Outpatient Behavioral Health

Our Intensive Outpatient Program is a less restrictive treatment program that provides a structured environment of less then 11 hours of therapy per week. This tailored process centers around the needs of each patient which includes psychological, medical, environ-mental, and educational needs which are assessed / monitored at each meeting. The environment is an encouraging one that is designed to use the new skills learned in group sessions and then reviewed upon the next meeting to enhance treatment and improve independence. This program is often used as a continuum of care.

With age comes wisdom and unfortunately, mental illness.

Like the rest of the country, the geriatric population in these rural communities is increasing and will continue to vastly increase due to the baby boomer population. Some studies have shown that rural areas will experience a greater gain in geriatric population due to retirees seeking a slower, calmer lifestyle. Our program stands ready to meet the needs of elderly patients. In fact, our program is ahead of the curve in treating the geriatric mentally ill. Both our outpatient and inpatient programs are designed to provide specialized geropysch treatment. Why is this area of medical expertise so important?

• Fewer people over age 55 (3%) are treated by a mental health professional than any other age group (American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry, 2001).
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• Adults over the age of 65 have the highest suicide rate of all age groups (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999).

Specialized programs to meet the needs of the community

Pioneer Health Services Behavioral Health Division specializes in Senior Care. The situa-tions that plague the senior citizens of today's society are very different than that of younger generations; therefore, they require a different approach to the intervention and treatment of their condition. Lack of socialization, change in environment, and loss of a loved one are a few of the issues that anguish this population. Our programs are designed to assist senior citizens in your community with the emotional distresses that inevitably affect members of that age group. The goal of our Geropsych Units is to provide assistance in resolving and/or relieving issues that disable and affect the day to day living of these patients.

In our experience, our Geropsych Units have proven to be beneficial to the community in other ways too. Through health fairs, speaking engagements, community events, and other social activities our community educator will begin breaking down barriers associated with mental health.

We offer two different programs to suit the needs of your community:

Big problems require bigger solutions

The initial objective of our Behavioral Health Programs is to meet the ever growing needs of mentally ill patients within the regulated 35 square mile radius of a CAH facility. However, in most cases the program garners such overwhelming response from the community that many Critical Access Hospitals find it useful to develop more than one location to fully service the entire community.

Treating the sleeping giant

The demand for these services is great. The rural landscape of our country is faced with a quiet epidemic of mentally ill patients that are either undiagnosed or have no treatment options. For many of these patients the only real treatment option is to commute to a treatment center in the closest metropolitan area, which is not a realistic option for most. The vast majority of these patients cannot afford travel expenses or a lengthy visit at an out-of-town inpatient facility. Even if they are able to make the trek to a metropolitan area for professional help, it lacks the comforts of being close to home, and having family close by to aid in the treatment process. The idea behind our program is quite simple and also quite innovative – bring the service right to the patient. Most rural mentally ill patients have spent a lifetime within that single community. Treatment should not take them away from comfort-ing surroundings and supportive family.

Call in the experts

It's obvious there is a growing need for behavioral health services across the rural landscape of this country. And that need will continue to grow at an alarming rate in the next few years. Community need however, is not the only factor in building and sustaining a successful and profitable program. Our behavioral health programs are developed, tested and proven in the Critical Access Hospital business model. If behavioral health is the missing piece of your medical service line, call Pioneer Health Services.