Dwayne Butler’s expertise was in business and finance, not health care, when he took over as president and CEO of Betty Jean Kerr People’s Health Centers from his mother, the organization’s founder and namesake, in 2008.
And he has brought the skill set of a businessman, as well as compassion, to bear upon the federally qualified health center, effecting a series of mergers. People’s is now a community conglomerate of six businesses touching areas such as housing and community development that impact its core mission of improving health outcomes. It has more than 500 employees and treats more than 45,000 unique patients a year.
The next phase of People’s growth opens 1 p.m. Monday, February 29 when it breaks ground on a new $6 million children and adolescent health facility at 5647 Delmar Blvd. The facility will house three floors to accommodate 20,000 square feet of clinical and counseling support programming.
“Once it’s completed, we will have the necessary and critical medical and behavioral health resources in the same campus,” Butler told The American. “We know that proximity plays a part in coordinated care.”
The rationale is very simple – the easier it is for patients to receive the care they need, the more likely they actually will get treated. This is especially critical when the treatment is for behavioral issues, which frequently are stigmatized.
“If we see a child in the primary care exam room and recognize behavioral health issues, we will be able to bring needed behavioral health resources into the exam room during the child’s primary care visit to assess and treat during the same visit. This unique ability, due to the diversity of services we are able to provide, increases behavioral health compliance,” Butler said.
“Simply put, if we send the child across town to receive behavioral health services, they may show up 30 percent of the time. If we send them down the hall in the same building, that percentage goes up substantially. However, if we bring in a behavioral health provider into the primary care exam room, we achieve an almost 100 percent show rate.”
Opening a facility that will address the behavioral health needs of youth builds upon a previous merger. On January 1, 2010, People’s merged with a community-based behavioral health provider, the Amanda Luckett Murphy Hopewell Center.
The new children’s health facility was designed with the input of local psychiatrists and other mental health professionals with a goal of creating an environment that addresses the mental health needs of underserved urban youth. Butler said having a pristine new facility where youth can receive behavioral health treatment will help to address the stigma that keeps many people from receiving the behavioral treatment they need.
“We must show our children that we no longer need to whisper about depression, anxiety, anger,” Butler said. “With this new amazing facility, we want families to feel good about treating the problems they see in their children every day.”
The facility was designed by KAI Design & Build and will be built by Hankins Construction Company, with Raineri Construction handling the parking. The center will be constructed east of the Social Security Administration Center on property owned by People’s, with an anticipated completion date of February 2017.
The ground-breaking ceremony will be held at 5701 Delmar Blvd., with a reception immediately following. U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay and St. Louis Mayor Francis G. Slay are scheduled to speak, reflective of support People’s received for the project from the federal government (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) and the City of St. Louis (the Community Development Administration, Land Revitalization Authority, Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority and Board of Public Service).
Butler understands that more thorough treatment of behavioral health issues will impact more people than those who receive the treatment they need. “We hope to intervene in adolescent behavioral health issues,” he said, “before they become news events.”
For more information, visit phchopeforkids.com.
