Tag: child care

Within a year, East Lampeter Township-based CHI St. Joseph Children’s Health has gone through an upheaval of services, moving away from dental care as it sees other issues it can tackle in Lancaster County.

This February, the nonprofit organization transitioned from the dental program it ran in the city for 14 years to focus its efforts on children’s behavioral health. At the same time, CHI St. Joseph Children’s Health began planning a food market and a childcare center in Columbia, Lancaster County.

These changes in services may seem like random additions for an organization that once focused solely on dental care. However, the programs all fit into the organization’s strategy of testing different models of care to see if they can be replicated both in and outside Lancaster County, according to Philip Goropoulos, president of CHI St. Joseph.

“We are a dynamic organization that is responding to community need,” Goropoulos said. “We aren’t looking to always be one thing, we are looking at what is needed and that requires some risk taking.”

CHI, or the Catholic Health Initiative, is part of CommonSpirit Health, a Chicago based nonprofit health system with 142 hospitals and 700 care sites in 21 states. Despite its size, Lancaster’s branch of the initiative has benefited from corporate leadership that allows CHI to be flexible with how it solves problems in Lancaster County.

For years, CHI offered dental care through its dental clinics in Columbia and East Lampeter Township for families with Medicaid and the national Children’s Health Insurance Plan. CHI ended the program in March, donating its dental equipment to York-based Family First Health.

When CHI and its Board of Directors first created the dental program, there were no providers taking Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Plan, according to Goropoulos. The decision was made to step away from dental after there were providers who CHI thought could do the same work, if not better.

“There was no reason we couldn’t continue to (offer dental services) but there were other organizations that could do it better and more efficiently and we could expand into other areas where we saw a need,” he said.

After two years of offering behavioral health alongside dental care, CHI switched its focus to the behavioral care space after seeing a lack of it in the region.

“We don’t have enough mental health providers for the number of people that need them and we don’t have enough providers that will do something on a pro bono basis,” said Elaine Ugolnik, board secretary.

CHI leadership decided on a model of care that would look at every facet of a child’s life when deciding on what treatment to use by utilizing a suite of wellness coaches, case managers and therapists.

That model was presented to CHI’s board of directors, which was then given to CHI’s national leaders for review.

“Everything we do is driven by the local board, they identified dental and then they identified behavioral health,” Goropoulos said. “If we could make a business case for it, national supported us.”

CHI has gotten the go ahead on projects more unique than behavioral care with the board approving plans for a $6.4 million child care center that broke ground in May. The St. John Neumann School for Children and Families is another example of the nonprofit finding a need in a local community and finding a creative way to combat it.

The school was born from a need in Columbia for child care in the area with over 400 children and families unable to access services because of cost and lack of availability, according to CHI.

Goropoulos said that CHI was a good fit to create a school in the region that catered to children from 6 weeks and 5 years old because the school could utilize the center to provide meals for children and need and support healthy family dynamics.

“If you look at health outcomes and individuals who have struggled with their health, that can go back to early childhood experiences,” he said.

Despite the initial investment into the new school, CHI doesn’t currently know what its payer mix will look like at the school with a tuition system driven by family income.

“We will budget as if everyone is getting half off their tuition,” Goropoulos said. “We are blessed with an asset base that allows us to take some risk.”

CHI’s board has also approved a plan in November to reopen the Columbia Market House that shuttered its doors in 2017. The partnership with the Columbia Borough would allow for up to 20 vendors at the 15 S. Third St. building along with a 40-seat restaurant.

The market is planned to open in June 2020 and would give Columbia residents easier access to fresh produce and create jobs in the borough’s downtown. Goropoulos said that the market is also planned to have after-market hours where individuals can receive free produce that would have otherwise gone to waste.