Though most of you have heard me say this on numerous occasions, change is in the air at Sound. As we come to the end of 2019, I cannot help but reflect on all of the exciting things taking place here. Yes, the CPC announcement counts as a significant and important development. So, too, is our continued implementation of the Reaching Recovery model of care. There’s Sound Thinking, our version of Lean methodology, that most of us have heard about and are now beginning to see emerge from the theoretical to daily practice. And of course, the prospect of expanding our company to counties and communities outside of King County is something we’re working toward. All of these developments are cause for much excitement.
In my mind, though, nothing is more invigorating than evolving into whole healthcare. While the process of creating a successful blueprint and building an entirely new model of integrated care has presented many challenges and new learning opportunities, I’m confident that 2020 will begin to see a significant return on our vision and investment to deliver whole health to the people we serve.
Our recruitment efforts have expanded significantly in order for us to attract the right type of talent. We are not looking for just medical professionals, but professionals invested in serving people living with behavioral health issues. Our move into whole healthcare, we have learned, is a singularly unique opportunity to transform healthcare and the medical professionals we are seeking must possess a unique outlook, open mind and unique skills to deliver the best care to our distinctive populations.
As stewards of the community resources used to do our work, we are mindful that we must proceed intelligently with regard to our treatment spaces. The equipment, space and device requirements needed to successfully launch a primary care practice are much different then what is needed to provide behavioral health clinical care. Moving into this new arena has tasked us with taking a smart, measured and intentional approach as we identify and build out those treatment rooms. But that process has been proceeding and we’re excited that we now have five primary care treatment rooms in three locations, with a new exam room in our Wallingford location to be completed in early 2020.
The work of creating an internal referral structure – whereby primary care and behavioral health providers refer clients between the practice areas — is also underway; we expect things to ramp up considerably, however, when new locations and new medical team members are added. I look forward to sharing more about this once things get going in 2020.
We believe we are designing a distinct, unparalleled and responsive standard of whole healthcare – that is behavioral health-centric. Our agile, efficient and expansive care delivery system will save lives, improve outcomes and more effectively serve the whole health needs of our clients.
I am convinced, and hope that you all are, too, that good things, like providing whole healthcare to the people we serve, takes time. It often requires us to move out of our comfort zones, learning lessons along the way. Good things may require that we, collectively, develop greater comfort with navigating new frontiers and embrace greater tolerance for making changes if needed. Our move into whole healthcare, I believe, is a big step for us and as we look toward 2020. I am excited for our future.
Good and exciting things are happening at Sound!