The Practice Integration Profile: Rationale, development, method, and research (original) (raw)

Development and Validation of a Measure of Primary Care Behavioral Health Integration

Introduction: We developed the Practice Integration Profile (PIP) to measure the degree of behavioral health integration in clinical practices with a focus on primary care (PC). Its 30 items, completed by providers, managers, and staff, provide an overall score and 6 domain scores derived from the Lexicon of Collaborative Care. We describe its history and psychometric properties. Method: The PIP was tested in a convenience sample of practices. Linear regression compared scores across integration exemplars, PC with behavioral services, PC without behavioral services, and community mental health centers without PC. An additional sample rated 4 scenarios describing practices with varying degrees of integration. Results: One hundred sixty-nine surveys were returned. Mean domain scores ran from 49 to 65. The mean total score was 55 (median 58; range 0 –100) with high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha .95). The lowest total scores were for PC without behavioral health (27), followed by community mental health centers (44), PC with behavioral health (60), and the exemplars (86; p .001). Eleven respondents rerated their practices 37 to 194 days later. The mean change was 1.5 (standard deviation 11.1). Scenario scores were highly correlated with the degree of integration each scenario was designed to represent (Spearman's 0.71; P 0.0005). Discussion: These data suggest that the PIP is useful, has face, content, and internal validity, and distinguishes among types of practices with known variations in integration. We discuss how the PIP may support practices and policymakers in their integration efforts and researchers assessing the degree to which integration affects patient health outcomes.

Understanding Care Integration from the Ground Up: Five Organizing Constructs that Shape Integrated Practices

Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine : JABFM

To provide empirical evidence on key organizing constructs shaping practical, real-world integration of behavior health and primary care to comprehensively address patients' medical, emotional, and behavioral health needs. In a comparative case study using an immersion-crystallization approach, a multidisciplinary team analyzed data from observations of practice operations, interviews, and surveys of practice members, and implementation diaries. Practices were drawn from 2 studies of practices attempting to integrate behavioral health and primary care: Advancing Care Together, a demonstration project of 11 practices located in Colorado, and the Integration Workforce Study, a study of 8 practices across the United States. We identified 5 key organizing constructs influencing integration of primary care and behavioral health: 1) Integration REACH (the extent to which the integration program was delivered to the identified target population), 2) establishment of continuum of care p...

A Mixed-method Evaluation of the Behavioral Health Integration and Complex Care Initiative Using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research

2021

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text. Background: Integrated behavioral health and primary care can improve the health of persons with complex chronic conditions. The Behavioral Health Integration and Complex Care Initiative (BHICCI) implemented integrated care across a large health system. Whether Behavioral Health Organizations (BHOs) and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) implemented the BHICCI differently is unclear. Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate integration under the BHICCI and to understand implementation differences between BHOs and FQHCs. Methods: We used a convergent parallel mixed-method design. Integration was measured quantitatively using the Maine Health Access Site Self-Assessment (SSA), which was completed by clinic teams at baseline and 24 months, and through n=70 qualitative interviews with initiative stakeholders, which were organized using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. Results were compar...

Outcomes of Integrated Behavioral Health with Primary Care

The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 2017

Background: Integrating behavioral health and primary care is beneficial to patients and health systems. However, for integration to be widely adopted, studies demonstrating its benefits in community practices are needed. The objective of this study was to evaluate effect of integrated care, adapted to local contexts, on depression severity and patients' experience of care. Methods: This study used a convergent mixed-methods design, merging findings from a quasi-experimental study with patient interviews conducted as part of Advancing Care Together, a community demonstration project that created an innovation incubator for practices implementing evidence-based integration strategies. The study included 475 patients with a 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) score >10 at baseline, from 5 practices. Results: Statistically significant reductions in mean PHQ-9 scores were observed in all practices, ranging from 2.72 to 6.46 points. Clinically, 50% of patients had a >5-point reduction in PHQ-9 score and 32% had a >50% reduction. This finding was corroborated by patient interviews that demonstrated positive experiences with behavioral health clinicians and acquiring new skills to cope with adverse situations at work and home. Conclusions: Integrating behavioral health and primary care, when adapted to fit into community practices, reduced depression severity and enhanced patients' experience of care. Integration is a worthwhile investment; clinical leaders, policymakers, and payers should support integration in their communities.

Applying Lessons From Behavioral Health Integration to Social Care Integration in Primary Care

The Annals of Family Medicine, 2021

Interest and incentives are increasing around strategies whereby the health care sector can better identify and address patients' social and economic needs in the context of primary care delivery. This interest is likely to accelerate during the economic recession following the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet effective and sustainable strategies for integrating social care practices (eg, patient-facing social risk screening and activities to address identified needs) have not been clearly established. Lessons learned from more than 2 decades of research on behavioral health integration could be applied to efforts to integrate social care into primary care. In this article, we synthesize learnings from primary care and behavioral health care integration, and translate them into organizing principles with the goal of advancing social care integration practices to improve the health of both patients and communities.

Improving Primary Care Behavioral Health Integration in an Academic Internal Medicine Practice

American Journal of Medical Quality, 2021

This report details ongoing efforts to improve integration in the 2 years following implementation of the Primary Care Behavioral Health model at a general internal medicine clinic of an urban academic medical center. Efforts were informed by a modified version of the validated Level of Integration Measure, sent to all faculty and staff annually. At baseline, results indicated that the domains of systems integration, training, and integrated clinical practices had the greatest need for improvement. Over the 2 years, the authors increased availability of behavioral medicine appointments, improved depression screening processes, offered behavioral health training for providers, disseminated clinical decision support tools, and provided updates about integration progress during clinic meetings. Follow-up survey results demonstrated that physicians and staff perceived improvements in integration overall and in targeted domains. However, the main ongoing barrier to integration was insufficient behavioral health staff to meet patient demand for behavioral health services.

Integrating Care: Improving Overall Health by Integrating Behavioral/Mental Health Care into Primary Care

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2012

and the Board of Directors' chair for UCare Minnesota, the fourth largest Minnesota HMO. His work focuses on the integration of behavioral medicine into primary care, population-based health, as well as family therapy and improving the care of patients with chronic illness. Dr. Baird is currently an active participant in the Minnesota Department of Human Services Children's Psychiatric Consultation Protocols Workgroup, which will become a phone-based clinical resource for physicians prescribing atypical antipsychotic and ADHD medications for children. Dr. Baird also led the multidisciplinary team developing the Minnesota Complexity Assessment Method© which is currently being tested in collaboration with a variety of practices in Minnesota. In addition to being a physician, Dr. Baird is also a family therapist.

A qualitative study of patient experiences of care in integrated behavioral health and primary care settings: more similar than different

Translational behavioral medicine, 2018

Integrated behavioral health and primary care is a patient-centered approach designed to address a person's physical, emotional, and social healthcare needs. Increasingly, practices are integrating care to help achieve the Quadruple Aim, yet no studies have examined, using qualitative methods, patients' experiences of care in integrated settings. The purpose of this study was to examine patients' experiences of care in community-based settings integrating behavioral health and primary care. This is a qualitative study of 24 patients receiving care across five practices participating in Advancing Care Together (ACT). ACT was a 4-year demonstration project (2010-2014) of primary care and community mental health centers (CMHCs) integrating care. We conducted in-depth interviews in 2014 and a multidisciplinary team analyzed data using an inductive qualitative descriptive approach. Nineteen patients described receiving integrated care. Both primary care and CMHC patients felt...