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Cherry Street Health Services Breaks Ground for New Model Healthcare Facility
Grand Rapids, Mich., March 8, 2010 – Cherry Street Health Services is pleased to announce that construction has commenced on its new Heart of the City Health Center. This building, located at the corner of Cherry Street and Sheldon, will reach an additional 8,000 low-income people annually with primary health care services. It is also designed to act as a national model for a new way of delivering integrated care.
Heart of the City Health Center is a collaborative project among three local healthcare providers: Cherry Street Health Services, Touchstone innovarè and Proaction Behavioral Health Alliance. Cherry Street Health Services was established in 1988 to provide primary health care services to people in Kent County, with special emphasis on low-income families. Touchstone innovarè, established in 1974, helps people who have a serious mental illness that affects their life in a significant way, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Proaction Behavioral Health Alliance is a collection of organizations provide effective residential and outpatient treatment, re-entry services, employee assistance programs, and wellness and prevention programming for youth.
Heart of the City Health Center will provide much-needed additional health care capacity for thousands of people. The demand for healthcare for low-income individuals in Kent County far exceeds the supply, and demand is increasing at a rate of 24% per year. Health centers and hospital clinics only have capacity to serve about 58% of the primary medical needs of the 193,000 low income people in Kent County. The other 42% - half of whom are children - may either go without care or use emergency rooms. Heart of the City Health Center will replace the extremely overcrowded Grand Rapids Pediatrics and Ferguson Dental facilities and significantly expand capacity for new patients.
As poverty in Michigan increases, this problem continues to worsen. According to the most recent Kids Count report, Michigan's overall child poverty rate was 19.3 percent in 2007, up from 18.3 percent in 2005. Poverty likely has increased in the past two years because Michigan's economy has continued to decline. In addition to causing a decrease in the number of people who have medical insurance, the faltering economy and high unemployment rates are also driving up the incidence of mental health needs. More people need help with depression and anxiety disorders, but fewer of them have the means to pay for it.
“This project presented a unique combination of need and opportunity for us,” says Chris Shea, Executive Director of Cherry Street Health Services. “We are receiving federal stimulus money and state matching dollars that will cover more than half of the project cost. This means we can create much-needed capacity with a healthy dose of dollars from outside the community.” More than $17 million in government grant funding is expected to help fund the project. In addition to expanding capacity, Heart of the City Health Center will be a pilot site for a new kind of integrated care model. Health care delivery today is fragmented. Individual providers focus on specific health issues, rather on the person as a whole. However, many conditions tend to co-occur, such as diabetes and glaucoma, or obesity and depression. Limitations such as transportation, insurance, and employment can make effective treatment especially difficult for low-income people. The partners in this project believe that effective care must address the whole person in a way that is easy to access. They hope that their approach – treating diseases of the mind as well as diseases of the body in one location - will become a model for health care provision throughout the United States in the years to come. In the process, they will simplify access to care for low income and underserved populations (especially children) and greatly improve delivery of those services.
The Grand Rapids Community Foundation is one of the first philanthropic organizations to sign up for financial support of Heart of the City Health Center. “We see a critical need for more health care capacity in this community,” says Laurie Craft, Program Director. “We are very excited about the way Cherry Street and its partners are re-evaluating the care model and looking to create a new integrated approach. We believe this will provide better care, help patients achieve the benefits of better overall health, and ultimately reduce the expense of cooccurring and lifelong diseases.”
“This is a completely new model of care,” confirms Shea. “We know we won’t get a different result simply by putting people in the same building. That’s why we are consulting with experts, focusing on training, and ensuring that technology will support new work processes. We want Heart of the City Health Center to evolve as a national model for integrated care delivery.” Heart of the City Health Center will do more than increase capacity for health care. The building location, at the corner of Cherry Street and Sheldon, is a former brownfield site. (Who) was engaged to clean up the site and make it safe for redevelopment. The construction project alone is estimated to provide employment for 200 or more people, with the new building providing 100 new professional healthcare jobs.
“We are thrilled about the many benefits that Heart of City Health Center will bring to Grand Rapids,” says Mayor George Heartwell. “This project brings jobs to our community and helps us diversify our economy. And cleaning up the brownfield site with a LEED certified building reflects the kind of long-range planning that will make Grand Rapids a more sustainable as well as healthier community.”
About Cherry Street Health Services: Cherry Street Health Services was established in 1988 to provide primary health care services to people in Kent County, with special emphasis on lowincome families. Cherry Street Health Services provides a combination of preventive care, self care, and physician care to more than 50,000 patients annually.