photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health Director Dan Partridge speaks during the Douglas County Commission's Wednesday, March 1, 2023 meeting.

Heartland Community Health Center has seen a dramatic increase in visits related to family-planning care, its leader told Douglas County commissioners on Wednesday, and that could make it the ideal new home for a grant funding such services.

At its weekly meeting, the County Commission heard from Heartland CEO Julie Branstrom and Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health Director Dan Partridge about the health department’s plan to hand off so-called Title X services to Heartland. Those are family-planning services, such as contraceptive services, pregnancy testing, screenings for breast and cervical cancer and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, that are paid for by a government grant.

The health department is currently Douglas County’s Title X grant recipient, but Partridge said visits for Title X services had been decreasing at the department’s clinic since 2019. Branstrom, on the other hand, said her organization had seen a 266% increase in family planning visits, although she didn’t say what time span that occurred over. And she said that if Heartland is able to take over the grant, that could mean more money for those types of services in Douglas County.

“Grant funding is also based on encounter rate, and so we believe that we may actually be able to get more funding than the health department has been able to get in past years,” Branstrom told commissioners. “That’s not a guarantee, but we are certainly going to ask for more because we will see more patients.”

Currently, Heartland is in the process of applying for the Title X grant. If the application is approved by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Heartland hopes to take over from the health department on July 1.

To get ready, Branstrom said Heartland is currently monitoring its access to family-planning care and creating workflows for how same-day and next-day access to STI testing will operate. Heartland has also purchased equipment that will allow for those same-day testing results.

It’s also planning for its Title X care team to be located within the health department’s clinic, Branstrom confirmed. Heartland actually used to have a care team based in that clinic, but it was discontinued when the coronavirus pandemic hit. If Heartland adds a service site there, it would run alongside the health department’s existing clinic, which would continue to offer its other services as normal.

“It’s a beautiful space that’s (since) been remodeled — we should use it,” Branstrom said. “And we believe that that’s going to help with the transition, because patients are used to going to the health department for that care, and we will be there to provide it in the Community Health Building.”

Commissioners had plenty of questions about how this transition would look the last time they heard about it in January, and answering them was part of the reason Partridge and Branstrom returned to address the commission this week. This time, commissioners seemed much more satisfied with what they heard.

Commissioner Shannon Reid said that in particular, she appreciated the health department taking her questions about things like access to same-day services seriously, as well as Heartland’s effort to incorporate that availability when it takes over the grant.

And Commissioner Patrick Kelly said he was happy to see some attention to commissioners’ concerns — but also stressed that the commission needs to be more involved in understanding what’s happening when community partners like the health department make significant changes, given the county’s role as a funding source.

“(I’m) very pleased with the discussion we’re having tonight, and want to encourage all of us as county commissioners and community partners to just keep in contact so that when changes happen, it’s not a surprise and we have a meeting that maybe didn’t look so great for the public as we asked some really tough questions,” Kelly said.

In other business, the commission:

• Informed the public that one agenda item wouldn’t be covered Wednesday night — a conditional use permit request for a landfill at 631 North 950 Road, just south of Clinton Lake, on property owned by Hamm Quarry.

Hamm Quarry operates a few quarry sites around the county. The Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Commission forwarded the application to commissioners with a unanimous recommendation to deny the permit, and the applicant withdrew its permit application earlier in the day Wednesday.

• Approved a request to rezone approximately 37.2 acres at 2384 North 200 Road, located just over the southeastern Douglas County line off of U.S. Highway 56 west of Edgerton, from “Agricultural” to “Transitional Agricultural.” The property owner wants to divide it into at least two parcels, which requires that rezoning.

• Approved giving one residence the ability to access East 773 Road, a private road located east of Lecompton, and allowing for a maximum of three residential parcels along that road moving forward. A property owner wants to access the road to build a future residence.

Commissioners also talked about the potential of approving additional residential building permits on certain private roads during a work session ahead of the regular meeting Wednesday afternoon.

• Heard an update from County Administrator Sarah Plinsky about progress on negotiations regarding the Treatment and Recovery Center of Douglas County.

Plinsky said the county and Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center had been making “substantial progress” in those conversations, and that the two parties were on track to meet the tentative timeline Plinsky outlined to commissioners in early February. Their meeting on April 5 will be the tentative date when county staff hopes final agreements with Bert Nash will be presented to the commission for approval.