The Oaklawn team (left to right): David Chapman, Caitlin Krouse, Patrick Barnes, Kimberly Levy, Cindy Shultz, and Kayla Goslee
Indiana Health Center South Bend has recently joined forces with Oaklawn for an exciting new collaborative to help the community of South Bend. Caitlin Krouse, Family Nurse Practitioner, has been an integral part of this new program. Caitlin shared the following information with us:
Indiana Health Centers in South Bend has some exciting news to share! We have started a new clinic in our area to provide primary care serves for those living with severe and persistent mental illness (SPMI). The clinic is in conjunction with Oaklawn, an organization that provides mental health and addiction treatment for patients in Michiana. This partnership between Oaklawn and IHC began with a grant from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) that focuses on getting people with SPMI connected to primary care to promote health and wellness.
The need for this grant stemmed from a serious problem: people with SPMI die earlier than the average population, as much as 25 years according to some studies, and they are often affected by chronic medical illnesses that go untreated or undertreated. The solution to this problem is integrated care, which offers a team-based approach to providing both medical and mental health care services for this population. Therefore, staff from both Oaklawn and IHC have come together to form a team that includes a provider, certified medical assistant, two health-care advocates, transportation staff, and more. In just eight months, we have already seen nearly 100 patients and many more are on a wait-list to get enrolled!
For more information about this program, please contact Cindy Schultz (574-283-1234 x9033) or Matthew Reese (574-283-1234 x 9488).
Many thanks to Caitlin and the rest of the Oaklawn team for all of their hard work to put this program in place! We appreciate you!