Johnson County's GuideLink Center reflects on first year of services

Jun. 24—IOWA CITY — For over a year, Johnson County's GuideLink Center has been providing mental health and substance use care for adults.

All services now are available at 300 Southgate Ave. in Iowa City, including crisis observation, which opened earlier this month. The 24/7 center also provides sobering, crisis stabilization and detox services.

The $6 million mental health and substance use disorder facility has been years in the making and had a soft opening in February 2021. The facility has been gradually expanding its services over the last year.

The Gazette recently spoke with GuideLink's executive director Abbey Ferenzi and medical director Dr. Monika Jindal to talk about the center's first year and what comes next.

Q: Thoughts on how the first year went?

A: Jindal said the first year has gone "phenomenally well."

Even though GuideLink opened during a pandemic and has experienced workforce shortages, Jindal said the center has been able to accomplish a lot.

"The fact that we are as far along as we are in terms of capacity, services that we have, and if you look at some of the numbers, like the number of people we've been able to serve," Jindal said. "I think that's a lot in the first year for what we've been able to do."

Q: What are some of those numbers from the first year?

A: In the first year, from February 2021 to February 2022, GuideLink had 1,175 patient encounters. Nearly half of those encounters were walk-ins.

There were 917 admissions into a center program. In the first year, there were 415 admissions to crisis stabilization, 331 admissions to medically monitored withdrawal and 171 admissions to sobering.

"We've seen increases in admissions in all of our programming," Ferenzi said. "When you look at our graph for each month, it just keeps going up. Some of the reasons that we've been able to accommodate that many referrals and admissions is ... we've been able to hire more staff."

Not reflected in the first year's data is how sobering services have increased, Jindal said. Numbers have doubled in the last two or three months, she added.

Ferenzi said the sobering unit opened in May 2021. When a new service is opened, "it takes a while for people to really understand what it is and who qualifies," Ferenzi added.

Ashley Salinas, GuideLink's support services coordinator, tracks all the data manually, Ferenzi said.

"We wouldn't have all of the information that we have and being able to really articulate the results we're seeing if it weren't for all of her efforts," Ferenzi said.

Q: Was it surprising to see nearly half of encounters in the first year were walk-ins?

A: In the first year, walk-ins made up 547 of the 1,175 encounters. The second most common after that was health care provider referrals at 270 encounters.

Ferenzi mentioned being surprised at how many more walk-ins there were than health care provider referrals in the first year, but also that it makes her happy to know people are hearing about GuideLink through word-of-mouth.

"People know they can come here any time — they can walk in — and they're going to receive that immediate access to care, so I think that's a really good sign," Ferenzi said.

Q: Can you talk more about the decision to expand services gradually?

A: Part of GuideLink's success in the first year, Jindal said, is how the center has opened and expanded services gradually.

"I think being able to do it incrementally like that has been what's allowed us to be successful and adaptable," Jindal said.

Offering services gradually and limiting the number of beds has allowed the center's staff to work out any problems along the way, Jindal said. Jindal and Ferenzi both mentioned how important it is to have the right staff doing this kind of work.

"Our staff is incredible when it comes to some of the things we're asking them to do," Jindal said. "We're asking them to do things they haven't done before, like expanding some of these services. We are asking them to change policies sometimes weekly because we are being adaptable."

Q: Are all services now available?

A: All services at the GuideLink are now open, and the center is working on expanding bed capacity for the services.

The final service, crisis observation, opened earlier this month, Ferenzi said. Crisis observation is managed by nurses and is for people who need up to 23 hours of crisis care.

"It's just another layer of care that we can offer here," Ferenzi said.

The main reason it has taken more than a year to get this service has been lack of nurses, Ferenzi said.

"Abbe Mental Health Center has put out all the stops in the last three months to get many nurses recruited, hired and trained, and they're ready to go," Ferenzi said.

Q: Johnson County is investing pandemic relief funds to support GuideLink's operations. What will the funds be used toward?

A: The Johnson County Board of Supervisors has allocated $750,000 in American Rescue Plan Act dollars to enhance operational support at the enter to meet behavioral health needs exacerbated by the pandemic, ensure 24-hour operations and enhance triage services.

Another $1.4 million has been allocated to enhance operations support to promote access to substance abuse treatment and prevention.

"What those ARPA dollars will let us do ... is be able to have some funding available to cover the costs of some things that we're doing here or some tools that we're utilizing that aren't always covered by traditional insurance or funding sources," Ferenzi said.

"When you have additional funding besides having to bill insurance, it really opens the door to see what we can really do here."

Q: As the GuideLink begins its second year of providing services, what's next?

A: Jindal said the center wants to continue to "foster and develop the services that we have, so that they're truly robust and truly patient centered."

A part of that could be adding additional medical service support, such as primary care or connecting patients to primary care. Jindal is trained and certified in both family medicine and psychiatry.

Having patients connected to a primary care provider is another layer of support, Jindal said.

"I do think we would like to see a primary care presence for our patients, and, again, what that looks like I think we're still kind of thinking through some of the details of what that might be," Jindal said.

Comments: (319) 339-3155; izabela.zaluska@thegazette.com

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