How Alluma Partnered with Iris Telehealth to Expand Access to Behavioral Health Care

Alluma, a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) serving six rural and frontier counties in northwestern Minnesota, partnered with Iris Telehealth to address provider recruitment and capacity challenges. What began with a single part-time child psychiatrist grew into a long-term telepsychiatry partnership that helped Alluma meet CCBHC requirements, expand access to care, and better serve its community.

Background

Alluma became one of the first agencies in Minnesota to use telepsychiatry as part of its approach to delivering behavioral health care. Serving six rural and frontier counties in northwestern Minnesota, the organization needed innovative workforce solutions to provide patients with high-quality, timely care despite the challenges of recruiting behavioral health professionals to the region.

Challenge

Alluma’s rural location made recruiting for hard-to-fill disciplines such as psychiatry particularly difficult. The organization had also lost a staff provider who moved away from the area. Although Alluma began using a remote telehealth provider, it continued to face capacity constraints and difficulty recruiting the additional providers needed to meet growing patient demand.

Solution

Alluma began its partnership with Iris Telehealth in 2015 by adding a part-time child psychiatrist to its team. After becoming a CCBHC, Alluma needed additional support to fulfill the required medical director role. Iris provided a remote medical director who became part of the Alluma team for eight hours each week. As the organization continued to grow and expand access to care, Alluma added an additional psychiatric nurse practitioner through Iris Telehealth. What began as a single part-time solution evolved into a long-term partnership designed to address both capacity and recruitment challenges.

Results

The partnership helped Alluma achieve and maintain CCBHC requirements while gaining the leadership of an experienced psychiatrist serving as medical director. It also increased access to care within the community, reduced appointment no-shows, enabled more clients to receive services at times that work for them, and strengthened coordinated care. Together, these improvements have helped Alluma better meet its overall mission of caring for patients in the communities it serves.

To learn more about Allumna, you can visit their website here. If you’d like learn more about collaborating with Iris to improve access to mental healthcare in your community, contact us today!