Rogers returns to onsite care across system in June
05/21/21 11:15:am
Rogers Behavioral Health leadership detailed a plan to return our outpatient programs to onsite care in June during a recent regional townhall meeting and email announcement.
Virtual team members will be back in clinics by June 1, and in-person patient care resumes on June 15. Current patients who are located more than an hour away from the clinic will be able to continue virtual care.
At the start of the meeting, Scott Johnson, MBA, chief operating officer, Regional Division, thanked everyone for their hard work and ability to overcome the challenges of the past year.
“For over a year now, each of you have done what I consider to be a minor miracle of ensuring that patients have been able to receive high-quality, evidence-based partial hospitalization and intensive outpatient services,” Scott said.
Transitioning to onsite care
The COVID-19 steering team came to this decision by looking closely at the number of new cases, vaccination rates, and outcomes data for our care. More than 40% of the country has received at least the first dose of the vaccine – and more than 68% of regional team members at Rogers have received their first dose. COVID-19 cases in the communities we serve, however, will continue to be monitored by the emergency management team and regional steering committee.
Outcomes
Rogers Connect Care treatment outcomes show that our virtual care is effective, but that in-person treatment is optimal for both the best outcome and patient satisfaction. Rogers will still provide some virtual treatment post-pandemic when there are significant barriers to someone attending in person.
Ongoing safety measures at Rogers
During the meeting, Patrick O’Malley, DO, medical director of Primary Care, discussed the plan for keeping both patients and team members safe during this period. Rogers will continue to use the Stay Safe guidelines regarding universal masking, eye protection in patient care areas, physical distancing, hand hygiene, and cleaning.
Patients and employees will also continue to submit daily symptom screenings and complete temperature checks upon entry. Tools like the UnitedHealthcare COVID-19 vaccine resource locator and other sites are offered to aid in finding available vaccines.
Dr. O’Malley highlighted how the Stay Safe pillars at Rogers have helped Rogers achieve COVID positive rates that are lower than community averages. Additionally, he expressed how grateful he was that Rogers and our care teams didn’t reduce treatment availability during this time.
“I’m very proud, and we all should be very proud of how Rogers didn’t decrease access to mental health care and didn’t turn our back on the other pandemic during COVID: the mental health care pandemic,” he said.
COVID-19 resources at Rogers
Rogers will continue to assess the latest COVID-19 developments in the communities we serve and make decisions on safety protocols in accordance. For up-to-date information on COVID-19 guidelines, please continue to reference:
Vaccine info and availability tools
