RBC | West Springs Hospital, the 48-bed, inpatient psychiatric hospital owned and operated by Mind Springs Health, is now in full compliance with the Colorado Behavioral Health Administration (BHA). The BHA conducted a resurvey of the hospital on Thursday, Jan. 5 and announced to leadership on Friday, Jan. 6 that West Springs Hospital had been “restored to full compliance status under BHA inpatient regulations.” The BHA’s restoration of the hospital to full compliance status comes a month after the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), who licenses hospitals on behalf of Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), found the hospital to be 100% in compliance with safety, operational and quality measures.
In August of 2022, Mind Springs Health hired John Sheehan to fill the role of president and CEO, following the resignation of former CEO Sharon Raggio and other senior staff members. Sheehan has since hired a robust executive team to lead the hospital’s operations, which includes senior vice president and hospital administrator Raynard Ware; senior vice president of quality and improvement Amy Cooper, and interim chief medical officer, Dr. David Conklin, who has responsibility for ensuring physician and clinician quality, system-wide.
“We’ve pulled together a strong, vibrant team of leaders who are dedicated to making West Springs Hospital the best inpatient psychiatric hospital in Colorado. The most important measure of quality is that our patients and their families trust us to deliver consistent quality care,” said Sheehan. “West Springs Hospital is a vital facility in the continuum of care in Western Colorado and our new Psychiatric Emergency Department (PED) will greatly improve access and take the burden off of local Hospital EDs, EMS, and law enforcement, who now have a secure medical environment to transport patients to for evaluation, stabilization, and referral to the next appropriate level of care — be that inpatient stabilization, medical detox, or step-down community care with crisis support. To be clear, compliance does not equal clinical excellence, and we are committed to improve every day, becoming the provider of choice for patients seeking behavioral health and wellness services.”
Mind Springs Health’s next area of intense focus will be improving access and quality in the outpatient mental health, substance use disorder counseling, and residential treatment operations.
“Integrating all of our services into a “continuum of care” is important,” said Sheehan. “Our purpose as an organization is to meet a patient and their family where they first enter our system, whether in the psychiatric emergency department, outpatient office, on the street via our crisis teams, etc., and to deliver a comprehensive assessment of their needs. From there, we develop a quality treatment plan that coordinates every service we offer to get them to sustained beneficial wellness as soon as possible. This won’t happen overnight, but the hospital being in full compliance now allows us to focus on those other strategic priorities to create unique Community Health Alliances (CHA) in the 10 counties we currently serve.”
Mind Springs Health understands that delivering consistent, excellent care begins with a strong, patient-focused culture. All staff in the enterprise are currently undergoing training in the “TRUSTED Culture Model” that was developed and adapted for Mind Springs Health by Dr. Brian Wong and detailed in his book, “Heroes Need Not Apply.” TRUSTED stands for Team player; Responsive and Respectful; taking the time to Understand patient, community, and stakeholder needs: creating a Safe environment for both patients and team members that values diversity; employing the best Talent who Execute and are Dedicated to our patients, our mission, our vision, and our values. Dr. Wong is personally delivering his world renowned training to the Mind Springs health staff, and he has been invited to speak to the Denver Medical Study Group in February 2023.
West Springs Hospital is continuing to hire new staff to maintain quality measures and ensure services are readily available. Registered nurses, advance nurse practitioners, and psychiatrists are the hospital’s top hiring priority, and the organization is offering attractive salaries and signing bonuses to attract professionals from Hospitals throughout the country.
Mind Springs Health is the Western Slope’s largest provider of counseling and therapy for mental wellness and assists individuals and families dealing with and recovering from substance abuse and addiction. Covering a 23,000-square mile area in Eagle, Garfield, Grand, Jackson, Mesa, Moffat, Pitkin, Rio Blanco, Routt and Summit counties, Mind Springs Health offers a continuum of mental health care with crisis response services, 13 offices for outpatient treatment, residential substance use disorder treatment, and West Springs Hospital, the only psychiatric hospital between Denver and Salt Lake City.
HOPEWEST PRESS RELEASE | Special to the Herald Times
