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Engaging Patients at Critical Moments is Key to Improving Behavioral Health Outcomes
Massachusetts is home to thousands of individuals with behavioral health needs who lack access to quality care. In fact, according to recent estimates, only 54 percent of adults with mental illness in Massachusetts receive any kind of mental or behavioral health treatment (SAMHSA, Behavioral Health...
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Behavioral Health Providers Moving the Needle on Diabetes
As the behavioral health population ages and their medical complexity increases, there is a growing trend in the need for primary care and behavioral health providers to unite and integrate in addressing patients in a more holistic fashion. Perhaps the largest push in the last decade or so has been...
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“Wrapping Around” Integrated Care
In 2014, Bergen’s Promise, Bergen County’s Care Management Organization within New Jersey’s Children’s System of Care (CSOC), took a bold step by agreeing to pilot a CSOC Behavioral Health Home; thus, establishing the first Pediatric Behavioral Health Home (BHH) in New Jersey and the first...
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Trauma-Informed Care in Community Mental Health Settings
Utilizing a trauma-informed approach in behavioral healthcare can potentially improve patients’ mental health and protect the well-being of providers. Integrating a trauma-informed approach, however, can seem overwhelming, as it requires resources, time, patience, and insight. Fortunately, the...
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Organizational Needs-Based Toolkit for Peer Workforce Integration Introduced at NYC Peer Workforce Consortium
On Thursday, April 18th, the NYC Peer and Community Health Worker Workforce Consortium convened over sixty stakeholders at CUNY Graduate School for Public Health for an event to “kick off” its new toolkit. The toolkit offers guidance to provider organizations who are interested in advancing the...
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An Effective Work Force Embraces and Drives Integrated Care
The behavioral health sector has been in the throes of a generational change over the past decade, one that has challenged the very way we offer treatment, organize operations and receive funding for our services. Our agencies have worked hard to adapt to these changes while maintaining the...
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Licensed Practical Nurses: Furthering the Goal of Integrated Health
It is a startling and sad fact that individuals with serious mental health problems on average die earlier than those without mental health issues. An article in JAMA Psychiatry reported that these premature deaths are primarily due to largely preventable conditions, such as high blood pressure,...
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Investing in the Integrated Care Workforce
It is no longer a new idea that the mind and body are intrinsically connected; Socrates via Plato, described this around 360 B.C. Yet, we still separate and silo these aspects of care; treating behavioral health needs like schizophrenia in mental health clinics and physical issues like diabetes in...
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The Experience of Workplace Stress and Compassion Satisfaction of Licensed Social Workers
Employed in fast-paced, often poorly funded agencies and working with clients who have experienced significant traumas, many licensed social workers are believed to experience a high degree of stress. At the same time, many feel emotionally fulfilled by their work and experience “compassion...
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Self-Care is Essential to Well-being at Work
By now, “self-care” and “workplace wellness” aren’t novel concepts. It would be difficult not to find myriad references to both in the popular and professional press. Many organizations, including in the private sector, healthcare and government have embraced employee wellness programs,...
