County Health and Mental Health Departments Complete Merger

By Matt Dougherty

The process began in 2019 and was delayed by a global pandemic, but after five years of work mental health and physical health are coming together under one department in Tompkins County.

On January 3, Tompkins County Whole Health revealed their new logo and announced their mission “to build a healthy, equitable community in Tompkins County by addressing root causes of health disparities, and integrating mental, physical and environmental health.”

The plan to integrate the two departments into one unit is intended to improve the quality of care for patients who visit both departments, reduce bureaucratic redundancies and make it easier for the departments to share electronic health records.

According to the county’s Deputy Mental Health Commissioner Harmony Ayers-Friedlander, “Data has long demonstrated the benefits to treating persons holistically, incorporating mental, physical and environmental health into a complete picture of the needs of the whole person. Tompkins County Whole Health embraces this concept and looks forward to providing our community members with a portfolio of services to improve individual and population health.”

In response to the successful integration, Tompkins County Public Health Director and Mental Health Commissioner Frank Kruppa said, “We would like to take this op portunity to thank the Tompkins County Legislature and County Administration for their support throughout this process.”

Kruppa continued saying, “We’d also like to express our appreciation to our staff for their commitment and dedication to this work, to drive our services forward to holistically improve health outcomes for county residents.”

When the Times last spoke with Kruppa about his hopes for the Whole Health Department, he said “I hope that anyone who seeks our services will not only get what they think they need, but if they discover that we have something else that might be beneficial to them, and that we will be able to quickly, efficiently, and effectively get them connected to those additional services.”