Unit is moving to IU Jay campus

Another long-awaited hospital move is coming Monday.

IU Health Jay’s behavioral health unit will open in its new location in Building C — formerly the surgery center — on the west side of the hospital’s campus in Portland.

“It’s so exciting,” said Jennifer VanSkyock, program manager for IU Health Jay Outpatient Behavioral Health on Thursday while her team was preparing for the move. “I mean, this has been so long coming. Our team needs this. Our patients need this. …

“We knew we needed to be close so that we could be a support and it can make it more convenient for our patients and so we can have the warm hand-off between our nurse practitioner and our staff at the other clinic.

“I can’t wait ’til Monday when we’re all ready to go.”

The program has been located at the former Vormohr Medical Center on county road 100 South. The billing department, which has also been at the site, is moving as well.

The new home for the unit is part of a larger renovation project that was announced in late 2020. Construction was initially expected to be complete in 2021, but long delays because of the coronavirus pandemic and supply chain issues pushed the timeline back significantly.

The original plan was to shift the hospital’s administrative offices to the east, with behavioral health to take over the newly opened space.

“The hospital space that was going to be available for us was so small,” said VanSkyock.

“And it didn’t offer any opportunity to even have enough room for the current staff we had, or growth. And so we knew that was just not going to be feasible.”

So chief operating officer/chief nursing officer Christina Schmenaur worked with the IU Health East Central Region board on other options, settling on Building C. The structure, which also houses the hospital’s multi-specialty facility, will about triple the amount of space available to the behavioral health unit.

VanSkyock explained that whereas current providers need to shift and coordinate between the handful of rooms available to them, the new location will have designated office spaces for each.

“This was great,” she said. “This will be amazing for us.”

The space has been fully remodeled with some walls removed and some new ones built to create the offices and a large group meeting room. It has gotten new flooring and paint.

The only item still waiting is furniture, which will not be delivered until April.

The behavioral health unit provides mental health and addiction treatment services with its staff that includes licensed clinical social workers and addiction counselors Cassie Alexander (substance use disorder) and Tellissa Colglaizer (mental health), psychiatric nurse practitioner Tracy Heath, peer recovery coaches Monica Grayson and Lisa Blansett, nurse Carey Brunswick, registration specialist Michelle Wagner and VanSkyock. (The goal is to hire another licensed mental health counselor who has experience working with teens and children.)

One of the key benefits, VanSkyock said, will be having all of the department’s providers under one roof. (Heath is not currently at the county road 100 South site.) She also noted a better ability to work with other IU Health Jay staff.

“Part of it will be a collaboration with the hospital setting,” she said. “If a primary care provider has a patient who needs behavioral health services, it’s as simple as pointing across the parking lot and pointing folks that way. It removes the barrier a little bit for transportation.”

In addition to its other services, the unit hosts the Compassion Connections and Smart Recovery support groups for those dealing with substance abuse disorder at noon Tuesday and 11 a.m. Thursday, respectively. CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training) is held at 4 p.m. Wednesday as a family support group.

“We want to provide the community for folks that need a connection,” VanSkyock said. “And our peer recovery coaches really have a passion for that work.”

Renovations for the new behavioral health space were paid for with part of the $5 million IU Health contributed to a capital improvement fund at the time of Jay County Hospital’s integration into the larger healthcare organization. Jay County Hospital Board, which became the IU Health Jay Board for three years before being dissolved, was in charge of allocating those dollars. In addition to the behavioral health unit, it selected creating new spaces for outpatient physical therapy and cardiopulmonary rehabilitation center as well as the expansion of the Family First practice. Leftover funds were used to establish the IU Health Jay Hospital Legacy Endowment Fund through The Portland Foundation.