[Editor's Note: This is part 2 of the Grant County Commission first work session of the month held April 9, 2024. It begins with the second presentation.]

By Mary Alice Murphy

The second presentation at the Grant County Commissioner April 9, 2024 work session came from Hidalgo Medical Services (HMS) Chief Executive Officer Dr. Dan Otero and Chief Behavioral Health Officer Dr. Teresa Arizaga.

Otero said he would address three levels of information. The first would be an overview of the hiring levels for the different departments of the organization, including medical care, primary, dental, behavioral health and family support services.

He said, as health care evolves, it has a direct correlation between the number of practitioners that HMS can bring in and the amount of services it can provide, as well as the access point for such services.

His second update was a status update on the opening of the Mimbres health care center. "Like any project of this nature, barriers will pop up. We were notified since I provided the information to you that PNM needed to move the power pole, and that required an addition easement from the owner of the property who lives in Germany. We expect that to move quickly. We recruited Megan Montoya to provide nurse practitioner services at the Mimbres clinic. She is a recent graduate of New Mexico State University as a certified nurse practitioner. We expect her out there late summer early fall, if all goes well."

The final update he put in his report addresses the services for the senior centers. "We had a transition in leadership in the director position. I've taken on the responsibilities temporarily and have had great support from the community, the county manager, and Mr. (Randy) Hernandez (County Planning Department director), as it relates to capital outlay. I'm also working closely with Assistant Town Manager James Marshall, as it relates to the Silver City Senior Center. I expect great things to come out of this transition the way things are going right now. I've been working with Mr. Prejean and the director of the AAA (Area Agency on Aging). The needs assessment survey for Silver City and Cliff are scheduled and ready to go."

District 3 Commissioner Alicia Edwards said she appreciated the report and the detail. "I have one quick question on the home-delivered meals. Is there a waiting list?"

Otero said there was no waiting list. "If you hear concerns please call me directly. There are global standard criteria, and we have the capacity to deliver meals. We are contracted for congregate meals, home-delivered meals, and transportation. There is some confusion on the transportation piece, but we plan to ramp that up aggressively. On the recruitment side, last time I said we had 11 openings. We have filled four of them and have more applications coming in, so we expect to fill them all. We've done some restructuring on the management of the senior centers and we have added a social events position to oversee the centers in both counties (Grant and Hidalgo)."

District 2 Commissioner Eloy Medina said some weeks ago, they had been notified of a phone problem, with the number turning into a long-distance call. "Has it been resolved?"

Otero said it is still a long-distance call if one calls directly. "We had to reconfigure our system with WNMC (Western New Mexico Communications) and there were some contractual issues when we moved from an analog system to an internet-based system. We are encouraging everyone to call 1-HMS, which is our primary call center, then they will get connected to the senior center site without a long-distance call. We have done education, online, radio, quite a bit and especially at the senior center sites. If you get complaints I ask you to tell me so we can address the issue."

The following report came from Dr. Teresa Arizaga, who thanked the commissioners for giving HMS the opportunity to give a behavioral health update.

"I usually go through the different services we have in behavioral health, but I'm not sure I've ever gone through the different divisions we have," Arizaga said. "We have six different divisions, psychiatric services, psychology services, our community behavioral health services, specialty services, care coordination and psychosocial rehabilitation."

She said within those divisions, "we have a whole spectrum of providers, including physicians, nurse practitioners, psychologists, mental health therapists, counselors and community support workers. Recently we've been blessed to be able to recruit more workers, so our behavioral health services are slowly growing, which is helpful as we move toward our crisis response and intervention. We are looking at what we can do for our community in the future and what we can do now. A group of us in the county have been getting together, and I think these meetings have been productive."

She said she also included in the packet a more specific update on the substance use treatment and addiction medicine services at Tu Casa, "where we provide outpatient services, whether groups or individual therapy." They do substance use and orientation for the MAT (medicine-assisted treatment). "Within the outpatient program, we had 388 visits for the month of March, with 227 unique individuals. We had a slight increase in MAT outpatients with 39. We currently have seven prescribing provides for the MAT program, including medical and psychiatric personnel, as well as five other providers who offer services within the MAT program, including group and individual counseling and orientation. "

With no questions, Edwards asked to recognize the Tu Casa board members in attendance, "and thanks for being here."

The third presentation was due to come from the DWI Coordinator Daniel Graves. 

County Manager Charlene Webb said Graves had other obligations that morning, "so I ask you to slot him in when he arrives."

The next article will include directors and department head reports to the county commissioners.

To read the previous article, please visit https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/84008-grant-county-commission-holds-work-session-040924-part-1