When Laure Marino joined Process Strategies last year, she knew she wanted to expand the primary care model serving one of the state's largest psychiatric hospitals.
Marino, an advanced practice registered nurse who in May will receive her doctorate in executive leadership from George Washington University, is the primary care provider at Process Strategies, an outpatient clinical arm of Highland Hospital. Marino is also one of 10 nurses nationwide to receive the Culture of Health: Breakthrough Leaders in Nursing award from the Future of Nursing: Campaign for Action, a joint initiative of AARP, the AARP Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The award "celebrate[s] nurse leaders and position nurses for leadership and executive roles to help people live healthier lives and create healthier communities."
Marino was recognized for her treatment model, best described as a "reversal" of traditional care integration. Where most health care providers have worked to wed behavioral health care to a primary care model, Marino has worked to fully integrate primary care into Highland's behavioral health model. Hers is the only practice of its kind in southern West Virginia.
"They were aware that their population was under-served with regard to primary care; they really just gave me full range to grow a program," Marino said. "It's very well documented in the literature that this is a need, so I was given carte blanche to come in and design a program."
As the only primary care provider at Process Strategies, Marino works to treat the physical diseases that many of Highland's behavioral health patients suffer from. Even before she joined Process Strategies, Marino said roughly 65 percent of her patients had some behavioral health issue, and the need for integrated care is especially important for behavioral health patients.
"Mentally ill people die an average of 25 years earlier than those who are not mentally ill, and the first thing people think is 'oh, that's their mental illness.' It's not," she said. "It's their medical problems that kill them - it gives me goosebumps to think about it - but it's because they don't come for care. Their medical problems don't get well managed, so we need to do a better job. They shouldn't die sooner because of a medical problem that isn't taken care of."
Marino's practice isn't limited to behavioral health patients, however. Process Strategies accepts new patients regardless of whether they require behavioral health care, and the clinic accepts both Medicare and Medicaid patients.
"We are in our infancy. It's really exciting," Marino said. "We have a lot of big plans...but it's exciting in terms of integrating and expanding our programs. There's so much more we're looking to be doing; we're looking at adding another primary care provider, probably within the year, because of how much our program is growing."
One of the more innovative programs Marino has been charged with managing is Process Strategies' Health Home. Health Homes are a pilot program of the state that pair two often-linked illnesses - currently bipolar disorder and Hepatitis C - in order to ensure better integration of care. Marino said the clinic is also working to offer more of its patients case management to ensure better continuity of care.
"We offer it for a few hundred patients, but we have thousands of patients, so we want to be able to case manage all of them," she said. "We want to continue to grow our programs between the inpatient and outpatient setting."
Marino spent three days in Washington, D.C., last week accepting her "Culture of Health" recognition and received a scholarship to attend a year-long series of workshops at the Center for Creative Leadership.
Beverly Hamilton, a licensed practical nurse who works with Marino, said Marino's focus on patient wellness and a full spectrum of care have made her great to work with.
"She is an excellent boss; she truly is," Hamilton said. "She is compassionate and understanding. It's been so great to be able to truly integrate mental health with primary care. It's so close, and I think they feel safer knowing that it's all one facility."
Dannette Smith, office manager for the practice, agreed.
"She's wonderful," Smith said. "She's amazing, because she was in D.C. emailing us things like 'did you get so-and-so's labs back?' And I'm just thinking 'how do you remember that? That was a couple of months ago.' She has a lot of MD patients, actually - a lot of doctors come to her because they enjoy her approach to patient care."
Process Strategies will host an open house on Wednesday from 5 to 7p.m. to recognize Marino and Process Strategies, located at 1418 MacCorkle Ave. SW in Charleston. The event is free and open to the public.
Reach Lydia Nuzum at lydia.nuzum@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5189 or follow @lydianuzum on Twitter.