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Integrated Settings: An Opportunity for Advancing the Care of Patients at Risk for Suicide
The integration of primary care and behavioral health affords settings the ability to better identify and manage patients at risk for suicide. Each year in the United States 35,000 people die by suicide, a large majority of whom are not engaged in the mental health system and who saw their primary...
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The NYSPA Report: New Medicaid Restrictions on the Prescription of Benzodiazepines
Late last year, the New York State Medicaid Drug Utilization Review Board (DURB) recommended new protocols in connection with the prescribing of benzodiazepines under the Medicaid program. Benzodiazepines, a controlled substance, are a class of psychotropic medication used to reduce symptoms of...
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Integrating Screening Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) into School Based Health Centers (SBHCs)
Adolescence is a time of dramatic physical, mental and emotional growth and development but also a time when significant risks exist. Adolescence is the time when many youth begin to experiment with alcohol and other drugs (AOD). Research has shown the brain is still developing until age 25 and is...
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Peer Leadership and Workforce Development
The future is here. 2014 is the year of the peer. In economics, the cycle of poverty is the “set of factors or events by which poverty, once started, is likely to continue unless there is outside intervention.” (Wikipedia, 2014) People with mental health, substance abuse and physical health...
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Mental Health Integration in Pediatric Primary Care Practices in NYC
The primary goal of mental health integration in pediatrics is prevention and early intervention. Mental health integration in pediatric primary care is increasingly recognized as a key approach to support children’s healthy social and emotional development and intervene early to prevent more...
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One Mental Health Clinic’s Journey into Integrated Care
We have heard the statistic countless times over the past few years, yet they are still shocking. People with serious mental illness will die, on average, 25 years sooner than the general population. WJCS, like many mental health providers, has predominantly focused on the area of the human body...
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One Runner at a Time: We Are Slowly Eroding the Stigma of Addiction
Recovery from substance use disorders often resembles training for a marathon. It’s a long process that requires discipline, focus, and ongoing effort. As addiction experts and mental health professionals gain greater insight into the behavioral-physical health connection, fitness programs are...
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Partners in Integration: Addressing Need by Supporting NYC Workers
In today’s evolving healthcare system, there is a growing need for an integrated healthcare workforce to better address the needs of patients with complex and interrelated medical and behavioral health conditions. However, workforce development supporting skills enhancement around integrated...
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Population Health: Transforming Health Care to Improve Our Health
As the debate about improving health in the United States wages on, it turns out that only 10 percent of our health status and longevity, experts declare, derives from health care. What Makes Us Sick? As the Determinants of Health pie chart reveals (see page 36), it is our behaviors, our habits...
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Preparing the Workforce to Improve Health and Wellness
Health disparities facing people served by the public mental health system are well known and remain a significant concern. In the 1990s, following recognition a 15-year loss of life for people served by the public mental health system, Peggy Swarbrick, formalized a holistic wellness dimension...
