ServiceNet Wins National Award of Excellence

NORTHAMPTON — ServiceNet Inc., based in Northampton, has received the 2014 Award of Excellence, Overall Best Practice from the Mental Health Corporations of America (MHCA).

The award recognizes that ServiceNet, out of hundreds of agencies nationally, “achieved the highest level of client satisfaction in the provision of behavioral health services” in two of the categories of service ranked each year by MHCA customer surveys. ServiceNet offers the surveys to clients at each of its five outpatient sites.

Jim Frutkin, vice president of Clinical Services at ServiceNet, recently took the stage at the quarterly meeting of the MHCA in Florida to accept the award. As a member of MHCA, ServiceNet is part of a select group of organizations that hold themselves to the highest standards of practice, and use the survey’s national benchmarks to monitor success and strive for improvement.

“This award validates a lot of hard work and reflects client satisfaction that’s accomplished on a large scale,” Frutkin said. Approximately 500 outpatient clients are seen every day by ServiceNet clinicians and psychiatrists.

The ServiceNet clinics employ about 300 staff members, and Frutkin said it’s a team effort to achieve a high level of quality across the board, pointing out that it depends on every interaction a client has with clinic staff, from the first phone call to — most critically — the quality of clinical work.

“Many of the survey questions address the quality of therapy and how helpful your clinician was, so our clinicians deserve a huge thank you and appreciation,” he said, adding that the clinics’ success is also the result of hard work by site managers, as well as administrative, support, and building maintenance staff.

“We see our outpatient clinics as centers of excellence, where we use evidence-based practices, apply the latest research, and employ the most highly skilled and talented clinicians,” Frutkin said. “We want each site to represent the highest-quality healthcare environment.”

ServiceNet’s first outpatient clinic opened more than 30 years ago in Northampton, and clients are now served at additional clinics in Greenfield, Holyoke, Amherst, and Pittsfield. Clinic staff members include psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, psychiatric nurses, and other specialists who provide counseling and medication management for individuals struggling with mental-health issues or substance abuse.