Restoring and enhancing care in rural oklahoma - the gcbhs project is "restoring and enhancing a full continuum of care in rural oklahoma." covid HIT hard in rural areas with long-standing health…

Restoring and enhancing care in rural oklahoma - the gcbhs project is "restoring and enhancing a full continuum of care in rural oklahoma." covid HIT hard in rural areas with long-standing health disparities, such as our service area, muskogee and mcintosh counties. Our project will fully restore behavioral health. MED management. Addiction and crisis response services in even the most rural communities. At the same time, we will remove a service barrier identified in our community assessment: lack of transportation. A new mobile medical unit will transport our medical team to rural areas and arranged locations to serve our hispanic and veteran populations. Covid has also impacted gcbhs staff. Our agency had employees in the office every day of the pandemic - we never closed; we adjusted services to meet client needs and CDC requirements. Gcbhs employees worked to meet client and community needs. They were patient and flexible in schedules and service methods. As time passed, anxieties began to take a toll on staff. At gcbhs, we understand that our greatest asset is our loyal, caring staff. We appreciate our employees and have wellness challenges and games, opportunities for fellowship, and an annual party recognizing employees of the year and tenure achievements. This project will add to that list, with a planned staff appreciation week to be held for all of our employees - outpatient and crisis unit staff, day and night shift workers. Our project proposal has a two year timeline and gcbhs will serve 200 unduplicated individuals each year, with a total of 400 unduplicated individuals over the project grant span. Muskogee and mcintosh are rural oklahoma counties with low health indicator rankings (63 and 70, respectively, of oklahoma's 77 counties) and a percentage of residents living below the poverty line that is higher than the national rate. Due to food insecurity, at least one in four of our community children are at risk of going to bed hungry. Our community assessment shows these statistics for our service area: muskogee and mcintosh county adults continue to show a high prevalence of tobacco smoking; opioid prescription rates in muskogee county were 30% higher than the state rate in 2017 - when there were enough opioids dispensed in the county for every adult to have the equivalent of 215 hydrocodone 10MG tablets; almost one-fourth of muskogee and mcintosh county adults suffer from depression; both counties surpass the national rate of suicide deaths; and muskogee and mcintosh county residents suffer from heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes - each at rates higher than the national rate. Our project strategy - along with the plans for the mobile medical unit - includes the following: (1) continue partnering with the fqhc located in our clinic to restore behavioral health and medical services; (2) add four new beds to our crisis unit and open a care as needed (can) unit to increase crisis access to stabilization services; (3) add a new partnership to reopen the barracks (veterans serving veterans - which closed temporarily due to covid) to serve our military veterans; and (4) partner with a local bridges out of poverty program to serve muskogee's hispanic families. Project goals include increasing access to OP and crisis services for populations described herein and increasing the overall wellbeing of our staff. Specific objectives to be met upon notice of award include ordering the mobile medical unit; purchasing technology to serve veterans and hispanic families; and scheduling staff appreciation week. Within two months of award, 4 new CSU beds will be in place and a new outreach team, including bilingual staff, will be hired; within four months of award the can unit will be furnished and staffed.