Excelsior Wellness

Excelsior Family Medicine: Successfully implemented the Collaborative Care Model within Primary Care by embedding a Licensed Social Worker, Registered Nurse and Community Health Worker into the clinic. A data registry supporting the model was organized and tracked through an Excel spreadsheet, with hopes that in the future an EHR compatible module could be purchased. This care model served approximately 85 patients whose depression and anxiety screeners showed improvement of over 3 points. In August we completed all milestones for the Behavioral Health Integration grant.(Continued on Schedule O)The key activities performed under the Federal Promoting Integration of Primary Care and Behavioral Health (PIPBHC) grant included education for providers and staff in adoption of integrated care models, expansion/refinement planning for integration to include all service lines, and increased patient support through portal messaging and simplified telehealth connectivity.To further our efforts in integrated health, the Epic electronic health record was launched in August for psychiatric services. The purchase and implementation of the system brings more transparency to providers across disciplines, improves patient communications, allows for more accurate patient data exchange, and gives increased visibility to medical and behavioral health services being sought externally.We met a major goal by bringing primary care to the Excelsior main campus. The move increases access to preventative care medical services for Excelsior's broader clientele and to the Indian Trail neighborhood as a whole. The renovated north wing of the building highlights our model of physical and mental wellness care integration. In 2024, providers across our service disciplines completed 10,409 visits. Primary care welcomed 864 new patients into services. We narrowed the focus of outpatient mental health counseling to only serve internal referrals due to the volume of people seeking care and performed 1,407 sessions. In early 2024, we had turnover of all providers in the psychiatric service line and backfilled two of the vacancies with newly graduated PMHNPs. This resulted in less than 300 completed services and this low number is a direct reflection of the scarcity of psychiatric resources in our region.We hired 1.6 additional providers including a part time primary care nurse practitioner and an LMHC Clinical Programs Manager. Support staff numbers remained stable though we experienced typical turnover rates in front desk staff and medical assistants.