The Prairie Ridge Integrated Behavioral Healthcare CCBHC Initiative will focus on increasing access to high-quality, evidence-based community behavioral health and substance use disorder services. The focus of services will be to provide comprehensive, integrated care that directly addresses behavioral health issues, chronic health conditions and adverse social determinants to health like hunger, poverty, lack of transportation and homelessness. Individuals served will include adults with severe mental health disorders, children who have a diagnosable mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder, individuals with substance use disorders, individuals suffering with a chronic medical condition that occurs with one of the previous three conditions and/or individuals with co-occurring conditions that include 2 or more of any of the criteria listed above. The geographic focus of the project includes an 8-county area in Northern Iowa, including the counties of Cerro Gordo, Floyd, Mitchell, Worth, Winnebago, Kossuth, Hancock and Franklin. This area has no existing CCBHC. The total population of the 8-county area, as documented by the U.S. Census 2018 American Community 5-Year Survey, is 123,149. Our Community Health Needs Assessment shows individuals in our area continue to face many unmet needs due to the lack of a comprehensive and integrated services system, inconsistent use of evidence-based practices, a lack of insurance, poverty (with 10.46% of the population living below the poverty level), and a lack of affordable transportation. These challenges are exacerbated by a persistent shortage of providers in the area, including physicians and psychiatrists. The lack of psychiatrists is particularly acute and intensified by a statewide decline in psychiatric beds for emergent and crisis services. All counties within our catchment area are primary care and behavioral healthcare shortage areas (HPSAs) for Medicaid populations. A CHNA by a local health system also identifies a lack of mental health providers/support services as the most significant need in North Central Iowa. The lack of behavioral health services is linked to a critically high suicide rate which is the ninth leading cause of death in Iowa and the second leading cause of death for Iowans between the ages of 10 and 34. Further, there has been a marked increase in the number of suicide deaths since 2000, growing from 288 to 521 in 2019, and growing still further during the Covid-19 pandemic. From March to August 2020 alone, 267 suicide deaths were reported in Iowa. Concurrently, alcohol-and drug-related hospitalization rates continue to grow. Issues are particularly acute among our Veterans, who make up nearly 7.6% of the state's population. Prairie Ridge has designated four goals with measurable objectives to meet the needs of the people of our catchment area and our focus populations. These goals include providing immediate access to comprehensive suicide prevention services, developing an Assertive Community Treatment program, expanding access to a comprehensive range of community-based mental health and substance use disorders services (including the expansion of crisis services and Medication Assisted Treatment services), and expanding access to Veteran-focused mental health and substance use disordered services. Our goal is to serve 1,000 unduplicated individuals in the first two years.
