Month: October 2017

Firefighters respond to apartment fire on South 71st Terrace

Firefighters responded to an apartment fire about 12:16 a.m. Oct. 18 at 625 S. 71st Terrace.

A Kansas City, Kansas, Fire Department spokesman said the fire was discovered in a kitchen in one apartment, with no other apartments affected by the fire.

The residents of the apartment were evacuated, he said.

The spokesman said two people, an adult and juvenile, were taken to the hospital for evaluation for smoke inhalation, but no injuries were recorded in this fire.

At this time, the cause of the fire is undetermined, he said.

New medical office opens for seniors

The new Partners in Primary Care facility at 7527 State Ave. includes a community room, where people gathered during an open house today. (Staff photo)

by Mary Rupert

A new primary care office for seniors has opened at the West State Plaza at 7527 State Ave., Kansas City, Kansas.

The new Partners in Primary Care office, located next to Westlake Hardware store, is a nationwide provider group owned by Humana that focuses care completely on seniors, said Kate Blackmon, vice president of strategy for expansion markets for Partners in Primary Care. The office is holding a grand opening today, with an open house and tours.

“Our business is all seniors,” she said. “Seniors are unfortunately an undercared-for group of folks that should be thought of as a blessing. As you age, your care needs change.”

She said the doctors and staff with the new primary care office plan to spend more time with seniors than the typical five to seven minutes they may receive at other doctors’ offices.

“Seniors need more time,” she said. “Our first visits are typically 40 minutes.”

Without that time spent initially with seniors, they’re not able to make an appropriate diagnosis, she said. Partners in Primary Care also works with the patient’s specialists, with hospitals and nursing homes, and with caregivers, she said.

Preventive care is an important part of Partners in Primary Care, she said.

The new facility at 75th and State will include a pharmacy in house, she said, and they will meet with the patients to discuss prescriptions and nutrition.

The new office also is set up for telemedicine, she said. If a specialty is hard to find, they will try to locate one through telemedicine. If there are a number of patients who need a cardiologist, for example, one may visit this location occasionally in the future. Those visits by specialists are not currently scheduled at the office, but may be added sometime in the future according to the need, she added.

The facility, which has been completely renovated, also includes a lab, infusion rooms, telemedicine rooms, and examination rooms with high to low tables, she said.

There will be a care coach who will meet with patients and their families, she said.

A unique feature of this office is a community center room that can be used by patients and the community, she added. There may be a movie night, bingo, exercise classes, cooking demonstrations for healthy cooking, and people will be able to come to the community center room even if they are not patients, she added.

Partners in Primary Care will be participating in community events, being a sponsor at events throughout the community, she added.

Offices for Partners in Primary Care also are in Independence, Mo., Midtown Kansas City, Mo., and Olathe, Kansas, and in other cities, she said. All of the centers are around 8,000 to 9,000 square feet, she added.

Partners in Primary Care is owned by Humana and will be accepting insurance from other carriers as well, including Aetna, Cigna, and Medicare, with other carriers to be added in the future, she said.

At the grand opening today of the Partners in Primary Care office in Kansas City, Kansas, were, left to right, Kay Elam, center administrator; Dr. Jose Garza, staff physician; and Connie Piekarski, nurse practitioner. (Staff photo)
A physicians’ station is centrally located at the new Partners in Primary Care facility. (Staff photo)
The new Partners in Primary Care office includes equipment that is easy for seniors to use, such as grab bars, floor-level scales and chairs with supportive arm rests, said Kate Blackmon, vice president. (Staff photo)
An infusion room at the new Partners in Primary Care office. (Staff photo)
The new Partners in Primary Care facility includes a lab where blood may be drawn. (Staff photo)

Kansas contractor adds short-term housing for foster care children

by Madeline Fox, Kansas News Service

With high numbers of children in the foster care system and not enough homes to care for them, one Kansas contractor is turning to a short-term housing option.

News last month that more than 100 foster kids had to sleep in offices over the past year while contractors worked to place them shed light on stresses in the system. The number of children entering foster care in Kansas has gone up by a third in the last five years, and more than 7,000 were in out-of-home placement at the end of August.

Another contributing factor is the decline in the number of beds at psychiatric residential treatment facilities, from 780 in March 2011 to 272 in August 2017. That drop has made it more difficult to place children who need acute psychiatric care.

In response, KVC Kansas, the foster care contractor for eastern Kansas, opened its first short-term crisis center in September in Hays. The crisis center is attached to KVC Wheatland Hospital, a children’s psychiatric facility. It can accommodate 20 children, with two beds to a room plus common spaces with TVs, couches and beanbag chairs.

Jenny Kutz, director of communications for KVC Health System, said in an email that while KVC is putting a “huge emphasis” on foster family recruitment, “any number of children sleeping in an office is too many.” KVC intends the crisis centers to provide “a safe, comfortable, child-friendly place to stay while waiting to be matched with a relative or foster family,” Kutz said.

KVC plans to open 20 additional beds in January by leasing additional space in its KVC Prairie Ridge Hospital facility in Kansas City, Kansas. It also is looking into opening another crisis center in Wichita.

Officials with Saint Francis Community Services, the foster care contractor in western Kansas, said they have been looking for ways to expand placements since 2014, and intensified efforts as the number of overnight office stays increase. Saint Francis has added 53 emergency shelter or other specialized residential beds since May.

Theresa Freed, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department for Children and Families, said the department has been involved “every step of the way” as KVC opened the crisis centers.

“It’s always our goal to make sure that children are placed as quickly as possible in a family foster home or in an appropriate facility, so we appreciate the work of our contractors to do so quickly,” she said.

But the contractors’ efforts to respond to the shortage of placements has not assuaged lawmaker concerns about problems in the foster care system or DCF Secretary Phyllis Gilmore and her department’s supervision of it.

House Minority Leader Jim Ward reiterated his past calls for Gilmore’s firing, while state Rep. Stephanie Clayton took it a step further on Twitter.

“From what DCF employees have told me, nothing gets better until everyone at the administrative level is gone,” Clayton tweeted. “It’s never just the Secretary.”

Gubernatorial candidate Mark Hutton also called for a leadership change at DCF in a statement Friday, citing concerns that Gilmore did not appear to be aware of the disappearance of three sisters in Tonganoxie from the foster care system in August.

Police announced Tuesday that three sisters, all under age 16, who went missing from a Tonganoxie foster home had been found safe, though an additional 62 children were missing from the two contractors’ care as of last week.

“It is time for accountability in our state government,” Hutton said. “The continued failures at the Department for Children and Families are unacceptable, with the most vulnerable among us paying the price, and it’s time that the Brownback-Colyer administration do something about it.”

Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer, who is in position to take over for Gov. Sam Brownback when he leaves for a position in the Trump administration, has declined to comment on whether he intends to keep Gilmore on as DCF secretary.

Madeline Fox is a reporter for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio covering health, education and politics. You can reach her on Twitter @maddycfox. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to kcur.org.

See more at http://kcur.org/post/kansas-contractor-adds-short-term-housing-foster-care-children.