New clinic for patients with disabilities 'awesome'

Is it the exam table that merits the gee-whiz award? Or is it the scale?

Devin Hoskins might call it a toss-up, because she’s dazzled by both pieces of equipment at a new health center designed and staffed specifically for adults with developmental and cognitive disabilities.

Hoskins, 25, has cerebral palsy, and unless you’ve spent your life in a wheelchair, as she has, you might not appreciate the hydraulic exam table that can be lowered to make it easier for the patient to get on it, or the special scale that can calculate the weight of someone in a wheelchair.

“I think it’s really awesome,” said Hoskins, who has balance problems and once fell on a scale at a doctor’s office. “It makes me feel great about having a safe clinic now and not having to worry about falling down.”

The idea for the Developmental Disabilities Health Center was born in 2007, but it didn’t open until the first week of January as a partnership project involving The Resource Agency, an umbrella organization for developmental disability services; Peak Vista Community Health Centers; HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital; AspenPointe, formerly Pikes Peak Behavioral Health; and the Beth El College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

David Ervin, executive director of The Resource Exchange, said response to the center has far exceeded his expectations, especially because there was little marketing before it opened.

“We’ve seen about 100 patients, but we were expecting a fraction of that,” he said.

It’s not just the specialized equipment that makes the center so appealing to those with disabilities and their families, said Ervin and others associated with the project. Patients get comprehensive and integrated services to include behavioral health care, if needed, a wellness plan, referrals to specialists and unhurried time with medical staff that is well-versed in communicating with a special-needs population.

“The doctor spent 35 minutes with me,” Hoskins said. “I had a lot of things to talk about at my first visit.”

Even the waiting room gets raves, not because it looks much different from other waiting rooms, but because it doesn’t have to be shared with people who don’t understand those with special needs. Dr. Carol Bach, a retired pediatrician who is an advisor to the center, recalls being in a waiting room with her autistic son when he was being less than a perfect angel, and feeling as if others around her were expecting her to keep him “appropriate.”

“The nice thing about this waiting room is, you don’t have to interface with folks who don’t understand,” she said.

The center occupies the fourth floor of what used to be Eisenhower Hospital, and was most recently Peak Vista’s pediatric center. Peak Vista and The Resource Exchange provided most of the initial investment of $190,000.

DEVELOPMENTAL DISABLITIES HEALTH CENTER

The center is at 2502 E. Pikes Peak Ave., and accepts patients on Medicaid, Medicare, CHP+, CICP and some private insurances. A sliding scale is available for people without insurance. For more information, call 632-5700.