What's Happening in Winston-Salem, NC…

Patients seeking help at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's Downtown Health Plaza (DHP) in Winston-Salem will find additional services, thanks to a recent grant made to the facility.

The Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust gave $876,000 to DHP to expand its integrated services for those with mental or behavioral problems. This is a significant measure, since it is estimated that approximately half of the patients who come to DHP every year, some 9,000 people, suffer from some sort of mental illness, or would benefit from an evaluation of issues related to behavior.

The idea behind integrated healthcare is to make it easier for patients to access all the services they need at once. Under the new scheme, each patient who comes to DHP will have a behavioral assessment. Integrating this test into diagnostic and treatment plans should improve the standard of care delivered to the 9,000 patients who would not have care at this level otherwise.

Dr. Rahn Bailey, who was recently appointed to the chairmanship of Wake Forest Baptist's Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, says that integrating mental health services at the facility will demonstrate a new way to care for the well-being of what he calls the “most complex and vulnerable populations”.

Wake Forest management might work with a flyer printing company on a handout to distribute throughout the community, explaining the new services.