CIPC Blog

This blog post is authored by a graduate of our 2014 “Primary Care Behavioral Health” course.  Many of our former students go on to do significant work in the healthcare field.  Dr. Cherepanov’s experience includes global mental health work in Chernobyl, Chechnya, Kosovo, and Liberia.  She now works as lead clinician for refugee services at Lynn Community Health Center—one of CIPC’s long-term partners in integration training.

During public health complex emergencies (CE), healthcare workers play a crucial role. This work can be rewarding as it reminds health professionals about their mission and purpose. But just like “a perfect storm,” CE disrupts the fabric of community life, and the responders are subjected to the same ailments as their patients (Cherepanov, 2019). When responding to international CEs, humanitarians accumulated a great deal of experience dealing with extreme work stresses. This experience offers a valuable insight into the psychological challenges the frontline healthcare workers face during the pandemic and the best practices for managing them. 

This post first appeared in January 2021 in the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

Dr. Ethan Eisdorfer, a behavioral health provider at our Barre Family Health Center, analyzes a recent JAMA article about using non-specialist care providers to deliver brief mental health interventions to pregnant and post-partum women.

The most common types of non-specialists in these studies were midwives and nurses, but also included peers or community members, health visitors, and even family physicians. In many of the studies included in the analysis, professional mental health specialists served in a training or supervisory role without providing any direct care.

What would task-shifting like this throughout primary care practices look like?  How might it change the efficiency and efficacy of current healthcare? Click on the title above to learn more.

Current research suggests that Medical Group Visits (MGVs) address the well-known triple aim: improving the experience of care, improving the health of populations, and reducing per capita costs.  But what about the quadruple aim, which adds improved clinician experience?

Clinician burnout, especially during the pandemic, is a serious concern for US healthcare delivery.  Talented and dedicated clinicians are leaving the profession and there is mounting proof that when clinicians are over-stressed there are negative consequences for patient care. 

Read the post by clicking on the title

Is practicing the spirit of Motivational Interviewing enough?  Implications for MI teachers and students

Read more about what actually produces skilled MI practitioners in this post by CIPC Director, Dr. Daniel Mullin.  Dan has been teaching and practicing Motivational Interviewing for more than 20 years and he discusses data about MI training and his observations about how MI is used in real clinical situations.  Click on the title to read the post.

Last year, prior to the pandemic, in Worcester, Massachusetts, a group of adults with high blood pressure were enjoying cooking and serving a delicious meal.  They were laughing and talking while they spooned vegetables and beans onto their plates.  Down the hall, someone was showing another individual how to take their own blood pressure.  And in a separate room, a doctor with a stethoscope around her neck was discussing weight and blood pressure readings with a patient.  What was going on? Click on the title above to find out.

CIPC Director, Dan Mullin PsyD, MPH reflects on his role as a behavioral health practitioner in a clinic where Medication Assisted Treatment and Medications for Opioid Use Disorder (MAT/MOUD) are common.  His clinical work is as a BHP in a rural clinic that has a substantial population of individuals and families impacted by substance use.  

Click on title to read the full post.

Learning to Fly:  a journey into teaching and mentoring in IBH

In the midst of a world-wide pandemic, behavioral health needs have grown to epidemic proportions among many who have no history of mental illness, as well as those who have long experienced mental illness. In an analogy that many have used, it often feels like learning to fly while already in the air. From this perspective, I feel compelled, as a health psychologist trained in integrated care, to consider how mental health clinicians may find innovative ways to use their skills in assisting systems of care that need our guidance most.

The pandemic takes a toll on providers, caregivers, and clinicians who care for those afflicted.  CICP faculty member Dr. Paula Gardiner shares a ten-minute meditation practice that anyone can do to provide some self-compassion. More>

Late this spring the CIPC faculty read with interest a special issue of Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medicals Settings on “The Primary Care Behavioral Health Model of Integration”.  One particular article caught the attention of CIPC Director, Daniel Mullin.  The author, Adrienne A. Williams, PhD discussed in “The Next Step in Integrated Care: Universal Primary Mental Health Providers” the binary view of mental health, either a patient is mentally healthy or is mentally ill.  The author cites examples of how this view reinforces stigma associated with seeking mental health services, even within current integrated care models.

Williams suggests as a solution, a primary mental health provider, “In contrast to the binary view, where some people are seen as needing an MHP and others do not, this model would be similar to the primary care model of health and would involve development of primary mental health providers (PMHPs). These PMHPs would be to mental health care what primary care physicians (PCPs) are to physical health care.”

Read More >

Until now, there has been no list of essential skills for medical residents who are learning about integrated care.  Recently the journal Family Medicine published Essential Skills for Family Medicine Residents Practicing Integrated Behavioral Health: A Delphi Study.  Lead author, Matt Martin, Ph.D., LMFT has been a colleague of CIPC faculty and generously agreed to be interviewed for this post.  CIPC faculty member Amber Hewitt Cahill is also part of the distinguished team that authored this study.

Click in the title bar to read the post