Dr Lori Raney Defines Integrated, Collaborative Care for Behavioral Health

Lori Raney, MD, principal, Health Management Associates, provided a definition and examples of integrated care for physical and behavioral health, in addition to explaining the strengths of the collaborative care model.

Transcript

How would you define integrated care, and what are some examples?

Integrated care is when you design a healthcare system to address the physical health and the behavioral health of a particular patient or in a particular patient population. We talk a lot about the integration of behavioral health into primary care settings, but we also talk about integrating primary care into behavioral health settings so that we get whole-person care.

Other examples would be addressing behavioral health conditions in intensive care units, on medical/surgical inpatient units, in emergency rooms, and in other clinics, but mostly what you’ll hear people talking about when they mention integrated care is really thinking about addressing behavioral health in primary care settings.

What is the collaborative care model and how can it deliver evidence-based behavioral health care?

The collaborative care model is a very robust model of integrating primary care and behavioral health, primarily in the primary care setting. In this model, behavioral care managers, who are typically licensed social workers, psychologists, therapists, work with the primary care provider and the patient to come up with a treatment plan to address their behavioral health conditions. Supporting that is the work of a psychiatric consultant, so they’re reviewing the patient’s care, their treatment plan, and making suggestions to the primary care provider for how to change or intensify or adjust their treatment if they’re not getting better.

The model really works off some core principles, such as measurement-based treatment to target, so we are able to treat someone’s depression to remission, to clinical improvement, just as we would with something like diabetes.