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Cortez facility will integrate health care
Cortez Journal
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Southwest Colorado Medical Health Center Inc.: www.swcmhc.org.
The clinic would be the first integrated health center in Cortez and aims to serve up to 2,400 current and new patients who are mostly at a low-income level, said Scott Wallace, senior vice president of integrated-care implementation for Southwest Colorado Mental Health Center, which will operate the facility. Medicare and Medicaid patients also will be served once the new center is built.
“We believe primary care and behavioral health will be drawing closer and functioning together," Wallace said. “People with severe mental illness are dying 25 years younger partly because of access."
Medical availability is a key reason Southwest Colorado Medical Health is planning an 11,860-square-foot health clinic to be constructed at 635 Empire St., Wallace said.
“(Cortez) is an underserved population and in desperate need for facilities," he said.
Behavioral-health services presently offered by the Cortez Counseling Center at 215 W. Arbecam Ave. will relocate to the new facility, said Bern Heath, chief executive officer of Southwest Colorado Mental Health. Heath is a clinical psychologist.
“The proposed clinic represents an important next step in the transformation of the mental-health center to become an integrated health-care provider capable of serving the whole person," Heath said in an Oct. 6 letter to the Cortez City Council.
City councilors approved a site plan and conditional-use permit for the clinic at their Dec. 8 meeting.
Wallace said the goal is to have the new health center operational within the next 18 months. He noted that the business is likely to employ at least one full-time nurse practitioner and have another working part-time hours once open, in addition to a nursing and office staff.
Money in the center's reserves will help to get the project started, but fundraising dollars will be necessary for its completion, Wallace said. Overall cost for the facility is $3 million.
Southwest Colorado Mental Health Center will not compete with any similar services offered at Southwest Memorial Hospital, according to Heath. He said the center, which will go through a name change in 2010 to Axis Health System, will add only primary-care service to the region.
“We're changing who we are," Heath said. “We'll have primary care, substance abuse and offer a full range of health-care needs."
Southwest Colorado Mental Health is a private, nonprofit organization that serves patients who have mental and chronic illness at health centers in Montezuma, Dolores, La Plata, Archuleta and San Juan counties. The corporation was founded in 1960 and partners with regional primary-care resources, including the Cortez Rural Health Clinic, Mercy Health Clinic and Durango High School school-based health center.
Children, adults, seniors and families are able to meet with mental-health, substance-abuse and vocational specialists.
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