Jenna Dejong / Summit Every day Information
When Thoughts Springs Well being introduced it had chosen a brand new CEO, Summit County officers They have been reluctant to grow to be too optimistic.
Two elected officers in Summit County — County Commissioner Tamara Pugh and Summit County Administrator Jaime Fitzsimmons — are vocal advocates of their ardour for accessible psychological well being — and about their frustration with Thoughts Springs over the previous few years.
This has led to dialogue and, at some factors, motion to sever ties with Thoughts Springs altogether.
Nonetheless, Summit County can not sever ties with the corporate simply but. Pogue stated this as a result of Thoughts Springs is the behavioral well being hospital within the designated “watershed” space of the state Summit County is positioned in. Because of this Summit County residents who’re in disaster are directed to Thoughts Springs services for therapy.
So, till Summit County can regulate its catchment space to Newly Established Eagle Valley Behavioral Well beingThe county nonetheless depends on Thoughts Springs sponsorship. In response, officers have sponsored quite a few completely different applications to keep up entry to native behavioral well being care and provides residents extra choices than simply Thoughts Springs.
Nonetheless, new CEO John Sheehan hopes so as to add potential to the embattled firm.
When Sheehan joined the behavioral well being subject, it was a household determination. Sheehan’s mom was a behavioral well being nurse. She was so profitable that at one level in her profession, Sheehan stated her mom turned president of the Affiliation of Nurse Practitioners.
When he turned eighteen, his mom inspired him to start out working within the hospital. He began answering the telephones. Then he turned a psychic. A psychiatric technician is somebody who works in a behavioral well being hospital who cares for sufferers who’ve a psychological sickness or developmental incapacity.
He continued to work in an inpatient setting, which meant he labored one-on-one with sufferers in behavioral well being hospitals. Finally, Sheehan stated he moved on to grow to be the code staff chief, then moved into the behavioral well being administrative space, the place he realized the right way to write grants and direct federal funds.
“I realized how the federal system impacts state Medicaid techniques — how cash flows, how program fashions are developed and the way states have completely different approaches,” Sheehan stated.
Sheehan started engaged on what he stated was a “billion greenback” well being system, BayCare Well being System, in a administration function. He was chargeable for all inpatient care in six counties, of which there have been 300 beds and 4 psychiatric emergency rooms, related in measurement however smaller than Thoughts Springs throughout the West Slope.
As well as, Sheehan labored with greater than six completely different management groups that oversaw the companies at every of their places.
When requested why Sheehan was chosen, Stephen Bates, president of Thoughts Springs, stated his expertise with large-scale behavioral well being corporations units him other than others.
“We have now an outpatient program that covers 10 counties in western Colorado,” Bates stated. Various geography, numerous societies, completely different societies with completely different wants. …so he was actually form of a rhinoceros for us, somebody with all these completely different experiences and competencies in all of the locations we would have liked.”
After BayCare, Sheehan determined to maneuver into consulting. Subsequently, he was contacted by the place he held previous to Thoughts Springs on the Regional Well being Info Group in Rochester, New York. They requested him to hitch with a concentrate on behavioral well being know-how.
“I wasn’t fairly prepared to start out in search of the following large job,” Sheehan stated. “However I form of needed to discover well being IT.”
His pursuits lie in a sort of program that permits healthcare suppliers to share information. Sheehan stated the system might assist hospitals improve interoperability and “might help us cope with sufferers extra effectively.”
So when the Thoughts Springs board reached out to him concerning the CEO place, Sheehan stated he was enthusiastic about what he might technically provide to Thoughts Springs.
Sheehan’s expertise got here in a well timed method after the Colorado Information Collaborative reported whistleblowers who stated they’d falsified affected person information. The whistleblower alleged they have been requested to falsify information by diagnosing sufferers with problems they didn’t have, to ship Medicaid-funded therapy to Thoughts Springs — funding that Sheehan has navigated and supervised all through his profession.
His ardour extends past know-how. Sheehan stated his true ardour is working with sufferers, which he stated is the rationale why Thoughts Springs’ place is right for what it’s in his profession.
Sheehan stated a portion of the grant funding helped Rochester Regional Well being apply for a concentrate on social determinants of well being, which he stated he believes is feasible in Colorado as effectively.
Hospitals normally share well being info, Sheehan stated, however this method harnesses the effectiveness of social determinants of well being and provides information to behavioral well being techniques that may inform them the right way to greatest present affected person care outdoors the hospital.
“Whenever you get to the hospital car parking zone, proper, what are the social determinants of well being? Properly, it is meals insecurity, it is housing, it is transportation, jobs, and behavioral well being,” Sheehan stated.
He added that his expertise final yr ready him to return to Thoughts Springs with an progressive perspective on the right way to assist the corporate grow to be good at what it does “by connecting with the bigger system and shedding gentle on the social determinants of well being and delivering higher entry and higher affected person outcomes.”
Sheehan stated he desires to be there for communities that depend on Thoughts Springs.
“I’m not in my twenties anymore, so I would really like this to be my final job. I’m dedicated for the long run,” he stated. “I’m very excited to be in Colorado, and I’m actually enthusiastic about what we are able to do in Thoughts Springs.”