Coordination of Care

Takeaways From This Episode

Providing physical and behavioral health care services in a comprehensive and blended strategy benefits service recipients by improving access to services, removing stigma for behavioral health care and coordinating services across providers which improves health.  It also offers benefits to providers because there is the opportunity for inter-professional learning, improved cross-discipline communication, and improved client adherence to medical treatment.

Interprofessional integrated care is a style of integrated care where the different providers (e.g. physicians, nurse practitioners, social workers, rehabilitation counselors, etc.) meet regularly to discuss the clients and their healthcare needs.  The model also includes a “warm-handoff” from one professional to another, where a physical health provider introduces the client to a behavioral health provider in the clinic.

One model of interprofessional integrated care is The Interprofessional Education Collaborative (IPEC), which offers a list of competencies and best practice guidelines to improve health outcomes for clients. There are challenges to offering integrated care such as maintaining good communication across disciplines and overcoming possible professional bias toward other health disciplines. Another barrier to the provision of integrated care is the misconception that co-location, or housing physical and behavioral health services in one location, is the same as integrated care.  While providing physical and behavioral health care in one location can improve access and reduce transportation difficulties, it does not offer the improved care and health outcomes of practices which offer integrated services.

Integrated care requires interprofessional communication, coordination of care and service provision across the different disciplines to overcome the silos of physical, mental and substance use services, and ultimately improved health care outcomes of the service recipient.