Compass Health
4526 Federal Avenue
PO Box 3810
Everett, WA 98203-8810
Phone: 425-349-6200
FAX: 425-349-8383
Web Site: www.compasshealth.org
Key Executives and Officers:
Larry Harris, Chairman of the Board
Jess C. Jamieson, Ph.D., President & CEO
Shirley Stallings, M.D., Medical Director
Compass Health was founded in1902 as the Parkland Lutheran Children’s Home orphanage, and has since grown into the largest public nonprofit behavioral health organization in northwest Washington. The agency operates a centralized access telephone system for clients seeking care throughout the region.
Most of the 20,000 clients served annually by Compass Health are medically indigent. Eighteen percent of the agency’s revenue is from fees and earned income from private insurance and contracts, and another six percent is from individual, corporate, foundation and county grants. 76 percent of Compass Health’s $38 million annual budget is funded by a capitated Medicaid contract. Compass Health assumes the full risk of managing resources within this contract.
A Jan. 2003 merger is the most recent of several efficiency-gaining expansions by Compass Health. The agency’s service area now spans the majority of the northwest region of Washington State. In total, the agency employs nearly 700 full- and part-time employees in 35 sites throughout its four-county service region. The agency’s administrative headquarters is located in Everett, Wash., at the site of the original orphanage building.
Administrative and technological innovations have allowed Compass Health to grow and retain its high-touch high-quality service model and become a leader among West Coast behavioral health providers. In 1993, Compass Health began creating efficiencies by forming Sound Data Services, a collaboration between several behavioral health care agencies to create a shared billing system. Today, this collaboration extends to shared network infrastructures and state-of-the-art Behavioral Health Information Systems designed to migrate paper record keeping to full online client records. By mid 2003, the agency’s telephone and data infrastructure will be upgraded and integrated, enabling Compass Health to further improve network communications. The agency’s North Sound Institute, in partnership with the National Council for Community Behavioral Health Care, will soon provide online training for behavioral health professionals at Compass Health and other agencies.
The agency’s services fall into three categories:
· Acute Care Services
· Psychiatric and Counseling Services
· Case Management and Support Services
Acute Care Services: Compass Health has an extensive network of crisis services for children, families and adults. Its child and adult crisis teams work 24-hours-a-day responding to crises throughout the region. Compass Health provides inpatient services through two free-standing 15-bed involuntary adult psychiatric facilities. Its psychiatrists staff adult psychiatric units in two area hospitals. The agency also operates adult crisis beds in three locations throughout its service area.
In July 2002, Compass Health filled a critical gap in northwest Washington’s children’s mental health care system when the agency opened its Luther Children’s Crisis Facility, a short-term residential crisis facility for children ages 7-14. Prior to opening this facility, children experiencing mental health crises were hospitalized outside the region. The two new six-bed units located in Everett, Wash. now provide a less restrictive alternative to hospitalization for children throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Psychiatric and Counseling Services: Compass Health provides individual, family and group counseling and psychiatric services to people of all ages. Both the agency’s adult and children’s individual services range from short-term primary outpatient care to long-term extended outpatient care for individuals with severe and persistent mental illnesses. Specialized services are provided to treat co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders. Compass Health’s multicultural services division provides counseling that is respectful of many different cultures, providing counseling and translation services in 13 languages.
The agency’s counseling programs include nearly four dozen special programs designed to treat specific populations and needs, in addition to those treated through primary and extended care counseling. Compass Health’s Children’s Advocacy Project, for example, provides sexual abuse counseling for children who recently disclosed sexual abuse. Its Cocoon House program provides counseling and shelter for homeless teens. The agency’s Senior-to-Senior Peer Support program trains community volunteers, age 50 and older, to provide peer counseling to seniors experiencing mental health problems.
Case Management and Support Services: Compass Health provides intensive case management and a variety of support services to clients throughout its service area, including a substantial housing program. Compass Health owns approximately 200 housing units and has access to several hundred rental subsidies to provide independent supported housing to adult clients. The agency’s Haven House was selected as a national HUD model program for developing housing for homeless mentally ill young adults. Two 20-bed facilities provide adult residential treatment services to the region.
Compass Health provides therapeutic foster care through its network of specially trained foster parents in its Children’s Hospitalization Alternative Program (CHAP). Children ages 6 to 17 receive intensive case management designed to coordinate delivery of social, physical, therapeutic, medical and academic services. The CHAP program provides psychiatric services, multi-disciplinary consultations, therapy and 24-hour crisis consultation and outreach.
Case management services include coordination of services with collaborating agencies throughout the service area, as well as Compass Health programs such as respite services and flex funds for client food, shelter, utilities, transportation and prescription drugs. For children, the agency extends flex funds for summer camps and school clothes in addition to other basic needs. The agency operates a homeless drop-in center that provides more than 38,000 meals each year. Employment support services are provided to adults with severe and persistent mental illness through a system of supported volunteer opportunities and job placements in the community.
Among the most important support services provided are Compass Health’s education and prevention programs, including its Preschool Play Therapy programs and classes on topics such as parenting, anger management and family functioning.
Compass Health is a profile of longevity in the community behavioral health field. The agency continues the legacy of serving the emotional needs of children and families that it began more than a century ago.
#