Risk & Business Magazine CEO/CFO Business Today Magazine Winter 2018 | Page 6

INTEGRATED SERVICES
Putting
Community Health
Ahead of Profit:
Integrated Services
T
imes, as the song goes, “are
a-changin’.” For healthcare
providers, especially those in
the behavioral health field, that
statement could not be more
true. People expect better services and
more accountable providers. Providers are
often faced with the challenge of clients
and patients who need help with a broad
range of issues, including education, safe
and affordable housing, easy access to
primary care, and employment. Often,
the only place that they have to turn is
the companies operating in their own
communities. Integrated Services is one of
those companies, opening 25 years ago and
serving southeastern and central Ohio with
a comprehensive array of behavior health
services but also doing so much more.
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To do that, they follow an approach known
as Community Behavioral Health, which
differs from traditional “therapy” in a
number of key ways. Additionally, they are
not simply acting as “case managers” either.
They approach the entire idea of therapy in
a different and unique way.
Traditionally, talk therapy has consisted
of a series of scheduled appointments
wherein patients would come to an office
or a clinic to speak with their therapist.
The approach on the therapy side is to
provide a safe space where people can work
through issues by expressing themselves
and, by doing so, develop some insight
into their inner conflicts. On the flip side,
supportive services (or case management)
is more often a process through which
helpers link people with services and
provide them with practical assistance to
get their day-to-day work done.
KEVIN GILLESPIE -
MHSA, RN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
What Integrated Services does, however, is
try to remove the dichotomy between the
two. Rather than approaching behavioral
health as an “either/or” scenario, they think
about Collaborative Helping, which is the
idea of walking and talking. The therapists
step into the everyday life of a person to
engage in conversations over time while
also assisting them with their routine
day-to-day needs. In other words, offering
practical help combined with purposeful
conversation that is organized around the
day-to-day lives of the patients, a process
which not only helps patients work through
their issues but also opens up opportunities
for them to experience themselves
differently and change their life stories.