PORTLAND, Ore. — The Regence Foundation announced today it has awarded $250,000 to Asante Health Systems to launch Navigating Troubled Waters, a program dedicated to improving care for patients diagnosed with mental illness. The program will place a special emphasis on serving rural, low-income and uninsured people in Jackson and Josephine counties.

“Providers in Jackson and Josephine counties cite mental health care access and treatment as the single greatest unmet need in their communities,” said Michael Alexander, Regence Foundation board chair. “We wholeheartedly agree that southern Oregonians shouldn’t have to tolerate the insufficiencies of a mental health system that requires them to travel hundreds of miles for essential care that’s unavailable close to home – or worse, to go without it.”

Currently, Jackson County has the third highest per capita rate for psychiatric hospitalizations in Oregon. Eighty percent of those hospitalizations are involuntary, and more than 20 percent of patients admitted for psychiatric confinement are re-admitted within two weeks of discharge.

Navigating Troubled Waters will train three patient care coordinators, called navigators, to work with southern Oregon patients to prevent mental health crises and provide a rapid response when mental health crises do occur. They will also monitor medication management, prescription refills and medication side effects (one of the most common reasons patients cite for terminating medications without physician approval). The navigators will be on-site at La Clinica del Valle, Community Health Centers and the Rogue Valley Medical Center emergency department, with a goal of eventually expanding the project to include all area providers.

“Unfortunately, our staff sees a lot of mental health patients in the emergency room because they simply don't have anywhere else to turn,” said Richard Phillips, MD, a psychiatrist at the hospital. “What might have been managed in the community, had the resources been available, then becomes a crisis which is usually much more difficult to treat, often ending in a prolonged hospitalization.”

Kathryn Steinmetz, Clinical Nurse Specialist and Nurse Practitioner, Behavioral Health Services added, “It's abundantly clear we need a better mental health care system in place in our community, and we're grateful for the support of The Regence Foundation, especially in this difficult economy, to help get Navigating Troubled Waters up and running.”

This grant, which will be spread over two years, was paid through The Regence Fund at The Oregon Community Foundation.