Partnering with Mental Health Providers: A Guide for Services Researchers (original) (raw)
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Psychiatric Services, 2008
Applying research findings to community mental health practices is slowed by provider concerns that research participants often differ from community populations in duration of illness, comorbid conditions, and illness severity. Selecting participants from community settings makes research results demonstrably relevant, but researchers and community providers can be mistrustful of one another, feeling that the other has little understanding of their needs and work. This mistrust impedes patient referrals for research. This column describes a program to increase researcher knowledge of community clinic procedures through structured interactions with clinic personnel. Follow-up interviews indicate improved attitudes and cooperation of researchers and community providers. Several seminal reports have stressed the importance of community-based research on interventions and practices. Such research can facilitate uptake of evidence-based interventions developed in research settings, address real-world problems identified by community providers, and enhance generalizability of research findings by studying the patient populations that typically receive the intervention or practice (1-5). Federal support to develop and enhance community-based research has grown, including the National Institute of Mental Health's Interventions and Practices Research Infrastructure Program (IP-RISP). This program seeks to improve community-based research via support for infrastructure-building projects. The IP-RISP in San Antonio is a collaboration between the county community mental health agency (the Center for Health Care Services
Challenges to Implementing and Sustaining Comprehensive Mental Health Service Programs
Evaluation & the Health Professions, 2006
The President's New Freedom Commission recently concluded that the nation's mental health service delivery system is ill equipped to meet the complex needs of persons with mental illness. A major contributor to this service quality crisis has been the longstanding divergence of research efforts and clinical programs. In this article, the authors begin by describing the unique needs of persons with serious and persisting psychiatric disorders and the evolution of the mental health service system that has attempted to meet these needs. They then discuss recent efforts to upgrade services by emphasizing the use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) and the research underlying their development. Next, they describe the difficulties of using traditional research methods to develop and test interventions for persons receiving services at public mental health agencies. Finally, they outline the challenges confronted when trying to disseminate these EBPs to the wider clinical community.
Community-based partnered research: new directions in mental health services research
Ethnicity & disease, 2011
Community-based participatory research has the potential to improve implementation of best practices to reduce disparities but has seldom been applied in mental health services research. This article presents the content and lessons learned from a national conference designed to stimulate such an application. Mental health program developers collaborated in hosting a two-day conference that included plenary and break-out sessions, sharing approaches to community-academic partnership development, and preliminary findings from partnered research studies. Sessions were audiotaped, transcribed and analyzed by teams of academic and community conference participants to identify themes about best practices, challenges faced in partnered research, and recommendations for development of the field. Themes were illustrated with selections from project descriptions at the conference. Participants, representing 9 academic institutions and 12 community-based agencies from four US census regions, ...
International Journal of Mental Health Systems, 2019
Background: Collaborative care is a means of improving outcomes particularly for people with complex needs. The Partners in Recovery (PIR) program, established in Australia in 2012, provides care coordination to facilitate access to health and social support services for people with severe and persistent mental illness. Of the 48 PIR programs across Australia, 35 were led by Medicare Locals, the previous Australian regional primary health care organisation and nine involved Medicare Locals as partner organisations. Aims: To identify features which enabled and hindered collaboration in PIR programs involving Medicare Locals and determine what can be learnt about delivering care to this population. Methods: Data were collected from 50 interviews with senior staff at Medicare Locals and from eight focus groups with 51 mental health stakeholders in different Australian jurisdictions. Results: Successful PIR programs were based upon effective collaboration. Collaboration was facilitated by dedicated funding, a shared understanding of PIR aims, joint planning, effective network management, mutual respect and effective communication. Collaboration was also enhanced by the local knowledge and population health planning functions of Medicare Locals. Jurisdictional boundaries and funding discontinuity were the primary barriers to collaboration.
Practice-based research networks (PBRNs) create continuous collaborations among academic researchers and practitioners. Most PBRNs have operated in primary care, and less than 5% of federally registered PBRNs include mental health practitioners. In 2012 the first PBRN in the nation focused on individuals with serious mental illnesses-the Recovery-Oriented Care Collaborative-was established in Los Angeles. This column describes the development of this innovative PBRN through four phases: building an infrastructure, developing a research study, executing the study, and consolidating the PBRN. Key lessons learned are also described, such as the importance of actively engaging direct service providers and clients.
International Journal of Mental Health, 2007
This article describes a public-academic collaboration between a state university research center and the Texas state mental health authority to design and evaluate a service package of psychosocial rehabilitation interventions. The project used a combination of evidence-based practice and community consensus as a tool for system change. The story of this effort and the new system that resulted is told through interviews with consumers, family members, and other advocates involved in the process, along with data from the state's management information system and reports prepared for the federal Mental
Collaborating for Better Mental Health: Boosting Multidisciplinary Collaboration in Psychiatry
Linkedin Pulse, 2024
In contemporary psychiatry, multidisciplinary collaboration is essential for providing comprehensive care to patients. However, the integration of measurement-based care (MBC) into routine practice has faced substantial obstacles, primarily stemming from acceptance issues among healthcare professionals. Drawing on the recent study, "Improving measurement-based care implementation in adult ambulatory psychiatry: a virtual focus group interview with multidisciplinary healthcare professionals," this article delves into how the innovative Therapy Outcome Monitoring System (TOMS) by Holistic Research Canada can transform this landscape. By enhancing acceptance among multidisciplinary teams, TOMS is poised to set a new standard in measurement informed care, ensuring better patient outcomes and streamlined care processes.
Implementing Evidence-Based Practices for People with Severe Mental Illness
Behavior Modification, 2003
Persons with severe mental illnesses (SMI) often lack access to effective treatments. The authors describe the Implementing Evidence-Based Practices (EBPs) Project, designed to increase access for people with SMI to empirically supported interventions. The EBP Project aims to improve access through development of standardized implementation packages, created in collaboration with different stakeholders, including clinicians, consumers, family members, clinical supervisors, program leaders, and mental health authorities. The background and philosophy of the EBP Project are described, including the six EBPs identified for initial package development: collaborative psychopharmacology, assertive community treatment, family psychoeducation, supported employment, illness management and recovery skills, and integrated dual disorders treatment. The components of the implementation packages are described as well as the planned phases of the project. Improving access to EBPs for consumers wit...