Spencer, Iowa — A leading northwest Iowa comprehensive behavioral health center has received some funding through a grant.
Officials with Seasons Center For Behavioral Health tell us they have received $119,643 in funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, or “ARPA” Health Information Technology and Infrastructure Grant. They say the money will enhance, improve, and expand the delivery of home and community-based services for Iowa Medicaid members.
Seasons officials say the ARPA funding will allow them to upgrade their telecommunications equipment and agency infrastructure and improve the capacity to serve clients outside of the traditional office setting. Specifically, they tell us the funding will be used for new telephones, computers, and tablets, additional servers, an Electronic Health Record Lab interface, and an agency vehicle.
Christina Eggink-Postma, Seasons Center’s VP of Program Coordination and Compliance says, “As more and more individuals receive services in a non-traditional way – home settings, community-based settings or via telehealth, up-to-date telecommunications technology is necessary to provide timely and thorough services. The funding provided by ARPA will provide Seasons with the technology needed to better facilitate ongoing communication for agency staff, to facilitate client referrals, ongoing coordination of client care, mobile telehealth services, employee engagement and retention, and general business operations.”
They are also very grateful the funding from ARPA includes an agency vehicle, according to President and CEO of Seasons Center, Dan Ries. He says they serve a very large geographic area. Ries says the plan is to purchase a larger vehicle which will give Seasons the ability to transport groups of individuals for respite and group therapy and will allow Seasons to increase the number of group services provided as well as the number of individuals served.
