Integrated Behavioral Health in Primary Care
Evaluating the Evidence, Identifying the Essentials
- Editors
- (view affiliations)
Healthcare reform is a pressing social issue for some, and a political rallying cry for others. But for many in the medical and mental health professions, healthcare reform means weaving together both domains to provide patients with quality care that is holistic and patient-centered. As desirable as this goal is, challenges from cultural differences to resource inequities threaten the dream. Integrated Behavioral Health in Primary Care provides professionals with a consumer’s guide for implementing integrated behavioral healthcare at the macro, meso and micro levels of care. Extensive evidence is reviewed, describing the types of behavioral health approaches that are essential in re-designed healthcare systems. Behavioral health has broad implications for systems-based changes in patient-centered models of care, including team-based care, evidence-based clinical practices, and quality improvement projects. Introductory chapters decipher the cacophony of terms to provide a common language for integrated behavioral health. Later chapters propose the best practices of collaborative medicine for healthcare procedures--from screening through implementation, while also addressing the problem of territorial disputes in healthcare practice. Included in the coverage:
The blueprint offered in Integrated Behavioral Health in Primary Care clarifies roles and opportunities for
professionals across the primary healthcare and mental health fields, including health policy planners, administrators, researchers, and clinicians employed by private and public healthcare organizations, health psychologists, primary care physicians, professional and consumer advocacy organizations.