HJBR Mar-Apr 2019

Healthcare Journal of BATON ROUGE I  MAR / APR 2019 41 For weekly eNews updates and to read the journal online, visit HealthcareJournalBR.com by SBP’s $100,000 grant from UnitedHealthcare, which was awarded in the spring of 2017. Haney, 65, is from Zachary. As waters rose dur- ing the 2016 floods, a neighbor rescued her by boat and took her to a local high school. From there, she was reunited with her family and stayed in a hotel until the waters subsided. Despite her home being badly damaged, Haney moved back to her house and lived there for two years until SBP aided in her home’s full restoration. The grant funds from UnitedHealthcare have helped SBP restore homes for 45 families throughout Baton Rouge. More than 2,200 vol- unteers donated nearly 45,000 hours to rebuild the homes. Jacobs Presents $15 to American Heart Association In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the American Heart Association Capital Area Heart Walk to be held on March 30, 2019, Jacobs pre- sented a donation of $15,000 to the AHA to sup- port the fight against cardiovascular disease and stroke. “Jacobs is dedicated to employee wellness and building a culture of health. We are pleased to support the important mission of the Ameri- can Heart Association, which funds critical sci- entific research, educational programs, and life-saving CPR training. AHA’s work has an extraordinary impact locally and reaches 93 coun- tries worldwide,” said Bryan Knost, Jacobs gen- eral manager, Construction, Maintenance, and Turnarounds. According to the American Heart Associa- tion, brisk walking for as little as 25-30 minutes a day has proven health benefits, such as pro- viding increased energy and circulation, as well as reduced risk of heart disease. The Capital Area Heart Walk is designed to help participants understand this critical message. Louisiana Healthcare Connections Provides Free Clinical Training to 5,600+ Behavioral Health Providers in 2018 Recognizing the growing need in Louisiana for clinically-trained providers of mental health services, Louisiana Healthcare Connections pro- vided 882 hours of free, evidence-based training to more than 5,600 behavioral health providers across the state in 2018. Louisiana Healthcare Connections has offered free clinical training to its network of providers since its founding in 2012. Recently, the health plan has focused on expanding and promoting these offerings as a result of numerous studies regarding a need for increased access to quality mental healthcare in the state. Among these stud- ies was Mental Health America’s “Ranking the States 2018” report, which ranked Louisiana as 45thin the nation in access to mental healthcare. “There is a very clear connection between behavioral health and physical health, and our state needs clinicians with evidence-based, qual- ity-driven training in both,” said Kendra Case, chief operating officer of Louisiana Healthcare Connections. “Ensuring that our provider net- work has access to this education is key to our mission of transforming health in Louisiana, one person at a time.” As a result of those efforts, Louisiana Health- care Connections provided 499 behavioral health training courses in 2018. The health plan also offered 40 integrated care courses and awarded nearly 60 hours of training in integrated care to 367 behavioral and physical health clinicians. Additional courses in physical health were pro- vided to more than 200 primary care clinicians statewide. Many of the course offerings were approved for continuing education hours (CEUs) for licen- sure for physicians, nurses, counselors, and social workers. Courses focused on best practices for quality care delivery, psychotropic medications, systems of care, ADD/ADHD diagnosis and treat- ment, and other topics. In addition, Louisiana Healthcare Connections launched an innovative Child-Parent Psychother- apy (CPP) Learning Collaborative to increase the number of Licensed Mental Health Professionals (LMHPs) in Louisiana trained to provide evidence- based and trauma-informed therapeutic treat- ment to children from birth to six years of age. Thirty-five LMHPs across the state received invi- tations to participate in the 18-month collabora- tive and will receive 19.5 CEUs from the National Jacobs presented a donation of $15,000 to the AHA to support the fight against cardiovascular disease and stroke. Pictured, left to right, are Bryan Knost, Jacobs general manager, Construction, Maintenance, and Turnarounds (CMT); Donna Ashcraft, AHA, senior regional director; Leslie Dozier, AHA Capital Area, Heart Walk director; Heather Erickson, Jacobs Material Control; Michael Authement, vice president of operations, Jacobs.