AUBURN - Cayuga County's interim director of mental health, Katharine O'Connell, has hit the ground running in her new position.

O'Connell, who attended Thursday's Health and Human Services committee meeting, started her job Sept. 2 and has spent her time “observing levels of care, quality of care, models of delivery and looking at every aspect of daily operations and our relationships in the community,” she said.

Committee chairperson Ann Petrus, R-Brutus, gave O'Connell a warm welcome and asked her if she was having fun yet.

“I don't know that I would use the word 'fun' but it isn't boring,” O'Connell said.

O'Connell, who is also serving as interim director of the Community Services Board, said that she spent her first week talking to doctors, staff, members of the Legislature, the Community Services Board and other community providers.

One of the first things she plans to do is complete an assessment of some of the department's priority issues and needs. Though O'Connell does not know how long it will take, she wants to do this as soon as possible so that proper action plans can be put in place, she said.

In her first week on the job, the most important thing O'Connell has learned is that there's a lot of work to be done and that there are a lot of committed, caring professionals who work in the mental health department, she said.

During the meeting, O'Connell and county nursing home administrator Deb English distributed some information about onePAC packaging for patient medications. Essentially, the packets of medicine would include a daily dose of various pills and would help ensure accuracy when distributing medication. O'Connell credited English with this idea and said that it was in the works before she started last week.

Kinney Drugs would provide the service at no additional cost to the county, O'Connell said. It is much more efficient than the current method of distributing medication and would therefore significantly lower the error rate. In addition, if this proposal is approved by the Legislature, it would free up nurses' time, which is now spent on packaging the medication, to provide patient education and support, she said.

“Whenever you can reduce potential error rates and free up nursing time for direct patient care, that's a win-win,” she said.

Staff writer Gitana Mirochnik can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 237 or gitana.mirochnik@lee.net