Implementing Mental Health And Wellness Within Medical Settings

When implementing mental health and wellness care in a medical setting, the medical setting would need a behavioral health provider. The behavioral health provider would help with preventative measures and have leadership abilities.

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Behavioral health providers need to ensure they are in the job for the patient and center themselves around the patient and their needs. The role of a behavioral health provider in a medical setting is to “identify and treat psychiatric conditions. Primary care providers have little training in assessing and managing psychiatric conditions”, so it is important to have a behavioral health provider in the medical setting.

Having the behavioral health provider in the medical setting helps the patient have a mental illness identified that could be affecting their overall health.

“Roughly half of all diagnoses of mental illness are made by the time a person is 14, and three quarters are made by the age of 24”. Prevention strategies a behavioral health provider may use in a prevention plan are dependent upon the life stage of the patient.

For early childhood, “fostering positive caregiver-child interactions and the development of emotional and social communication skills”. For childhood, a behavioral health provider may want to promote self-awareness, self-esteem and competency development. For young adults, learning how to manage stresses in life with enhanced responsibilities (this could be getting a new job or going off to college). For adulthood, prevention could include stable employment, educational support for adults who are at risk for depression, physical activity and nutrition.

A behavioral health provider and others who manage the daily operations of a mental health and wellness facility within the medical settings needs to have leadership abilities. These leadership abilities include creating a clear vision, ability to span boundaries, and focus on providing the right care at the right time for patients. Team values are important qualities for the behavioral health provider to have as well as others in the medical setting who will have daily operations with patients. Quality of patient care is important as well as being centered around the patient, and being there for the patient. Integrated health care has become important. Integrated health care is “the systematic coordination of physical and behavioral health care”.

Because behavioral health and physical health can occur at the same time, patients need to be able to have both behavioral health and physical health care needs taken care of at the same time. Mental health and wellness facilities are part of an integrated health system in the United States for numerous reasons. Many people seek mental health care in a medical setting because they are uninsured, they have limited access to public mental health services, there are not a lot of mental health services available in their area or their own personal beliefs or feelings about mental health care facilities. Integrated health care systems are cost effective care for patients and most primary care providers can treat mental disorders with medications. Finding and addressing behavioral health and physical health early, can help a patient, especially children. The integration of the health care systems also help because “most children with mental health conditions are treated in a primary care setting instead of a specialized mental health setting” .

A study performed in 2009 found that “collaborative care in which patients receive mental health services onside led to reduced treatment time, fewer appointments and, consequently, lower costs than transitional patient referral to off-site mental health centers”. The integration of health care is beneficial for patients. It saves a patient’s time, money, and gets them the help they need quick. Collaborative care in which a patient receives services on site for mental health lowers their medical costs because they are not being seen at an off-site mental health facility.

Integrative health care has become the latest talk in the health-care industry. When you have integrative health care, a patient can be seen for physical health as well as behavioral health and mental health in one facility. The facility would be staffed with appropriate professionals who can give preventative measures to a patient. With integrative health care, a patient saves time and money on their medical care, because they do not need to seek a referral for an off-site mental health professional.

References

1. Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. (n.d.). Connecting body and mind. Retrieved from http://hogg.utexas.edu/project/connecting-body-and-mind
2. Lardieri, M. R., Lasky, G. B., & Raney, L. (2014). Essential elements of effective integrated primary care and behavioral health teams. Retrieved from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website: https://www.integration.samhsa.gov/
3. National Institute of Mental Health. (n.d.). Integrated care. Retrieved from https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/integrated-care/index.shtml
4. Novotney, A. (2010). Integrated care is nothing new for these psychologists. PsycEXTRA Dataset, 41(1), 40. doi:10.1037/e640612009-020
5. Shea, P., & Shern, D. (2011). Primary prevention in behavioral health: Investing in our nation’s future. National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors.
6. Ward, M. C., Miller, B. F., Marconi, V. C., Kaslow, N. J., & Farber, E. W. (2015, August 26). The role of behavioral health in optimizing care for complex patients in the primary care setting. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4762832/