'

Opioid addiction is a national epidemic.  Effective treatment options exist but are challenging to access, especially for patients who live in remote, rural areas. There is a long history of separation of treatment of addiction and medicine and a disconnect between primary care and treatment for opioid addiction.  Our project has brought evidence-based treatment to a population in great need.  

UMass CIPC recently partnered with an Accountable Care Organization in rural New York, Bassett Healthcare Network, to expand their provision of Medication Assisted Treatment. Our work together began in January of 2017 and was primarily delivered via video conferencing.  This post was written by James Andersen, PhD a former behavioral health fellow at UMMS and a key partner in this collaboration.

Self-care and mindfulness techniques help patients cope with lives that leave them exhausted and burnt out. 

PCPs might model that self-care in their own struggles to stay afloat in a punishing healthcare system.

This is Part 2 of a 3-part blog on physician burnout.

Medicine boasts a “find it and fix it” (ideally as quickly and as painlessly as possible) mentality. However, changing and fixing systems is as, if not more, complicated than human beings and when things are going wrong, rarely is it one specific fix that can address all the issues. 

Recently, one of our family doctors posted a link to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine about physician burnout, a recently hot topic purporting epidemic levels of physician burnout with not only personal impact but also patient care implications. A nerve was touched. 

A psychiatrist weighs in--I feel appreciated by my colleagues and patients at the Family Health Center, although I’m not sure folks fully understand what I do (heck, not sure I do either), so I wanted to try to explain a bit more what I am up to when I sit down with a patient.

Choosing which thoughts to believe and which to be curious about and which to dismiss takes attention and conscious effort. Once we are aware, however, we can gain control over a tendency to passively accept thoughts as truth and begin to shift our reactions to our thoughts.  

One of our recent fellows, Joan Fleishman, PsyD, is the Behavioral Health Clinical and Research Director in the Department of Family Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). She recently co-authored a paper in the Annals of Family Medicine. “Interdisciplinary Management of Opioid Use Disorder in Primary Care” describes a Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) program in the Pacific Northwest. 

The team-based skills needed for effective behavioral health integration into Primary Care require specific competencies.  Read how our founding director, Dr. Alexander Blount is helping to shape what we mean by "competencies".

What to do when you know you are getting sicker but your health coverage is closing the door to primary care? Transitions of Care are so tricky.

Creating a new online CME course on Behavioral Health in Primary Care for PCPs - UMASS Medical School Professor Christine Runyan, Ph.D. is joining the CIPC faculty to work on a new online course. The Center has been working with partners at Arizona State University to develop Integrated Primary Care workforce training for a large PCORI funded research project. Read more >

As one of the team who answers queries and concerns from the public and helps individuals and groups in their decision making, I was really pleased to get this request recently. The team here knows that I am passionate about Care Management. For me, “Integrated Care Management” has such great potential to make a difference in patients’ experience. Read more >

There is always a fair amount of rejoicing when we receive a new grant, but the most recent for the CIPC, $50,000 from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of Massachusetts provides cause for extra excitement. The one-year grant will allow us to build an online course not for providers or health professionals... Read more >

When you want to help your patients change you must listen with empathic understanding and acceptance. Sound interesting? This is from Bill Miller’s—one of the founders of Motivational Interviewing-- recent presentation at the International Conference on Motivational Interviewing. CIPC Director, Daniel Mullin, regularly attends and presents at these international conferences, which are attended by a mix of educators, researchers, and consultants. Read more >

Our founding director, Alexander Blount, EdD was working side by side with primary care providers at one of UMass Memorial’s primary care clinics.  He and his colleague, Ronald Adler, MD thought a lot about the demands that a busy family medicine focused clinic placed on traditionally trained psychologists. Behavioral health providers (psychologists, clinical social workers, and counselors) were being trained to provide traditional specialty mental health care. Read more >