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Assertive Community Treatment Collaboration with Community Medical Providers

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Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Mental Health Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Individuals with serious mental illnesses experience significant barriers to accessing medical care. Assertive Community Treatment teams serve these individuals using a multidisciplinary approach in the community, helping ACT participants overcome the barriers to accessing satisfactory physical healthcare and can be key to primary and behavioral healthcare integration for individuals with SMI. In this study, qualitative interviews were conducted with ACT teams and medical providers to evaluate how they collaborate and coordinate care for ACT participants. Successful strategies for coordination involved organizational support, advocacy, negotiating levels of care, and coordinated treatment planning. While ACT teams discussed many successful strategies, a more standardized approach to community partner collaboration with medical stakeholders is suggested.

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Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Oregon Center of Excellence for Assertive Community Treatment, Options for Southern Oregon, 1215 SW ‘G’ Street, Grants Pass, OR, 97526, USA

    Alyssa Kerlinger & Heidi Herinckx

  2. Regional Research Institute, Portland State University, 1600 SW 4th Avenue, Portland, OR, 97201, USA

    Karen Cellarius

Authors
  1. Alyssa Kerlinger
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  2. Heidi Herinckx
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  3. Karen Cellarius
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Contributions

Study conception and design were conducted by Alyssa Kerlinger and Heidi Herinckx. Data collection was done by Alyssa Kerlinger, and all authors contributed to analysis. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Alyssa Kerlinger, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alyssa Kerlinger.

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Conflicts of interest

 Alyssa Kerlinger and Heidi Herinckx are employees of the state technical assistance center that is funded through the Oregon Health Authority to implement ACT in Oregon. Karen Cellarius has no potential conflicts of interest.

Data Availabilityl

Raw qualitative data cannot be shared due to ethical restrictions.

Ethical Approval

This qualitative study was reviewed by Portland State University’s institutional review board for human subjects’ research who explicitly conveyed that in this particular instance the study does not require Human Research Protection Program review under the federal regulations as the project does not meet the federal definitions of research with human subjects per 45 CFR Part 46.

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Kerlinger, A., Herinckx, H. & Cellarius, K. Assertive Community Treatment Collaboration with Community Medical Providers. J. Psychosoc. Rehabil. Ment. Health 8, 261–272 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40737-021-00220-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40737-021-00220-0

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