CIPC Blog

For years employers in many sectors, including healthcare, have offered funding for continuing education as an employment “benefit.”  As healthcare increasingly focuses on quality of care, are there good reasons to think about this investment?

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. 

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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.

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.

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.”

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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.

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Our founding director, Dr. Alexander Blount, guest blogs about his new book, "Patient-Centered Primary Care: Getting From Good to Great". 

Sandy's 1998 volume "Integrated Primary Care: The Future of Medical and Mental Health Collaboration" is one of the foundational texts of the movement to acknowledge the importance of mental health to our physical well-being and to integrate behavioral health care into primary care. Click on the post title to read his blog post explaining how the new volume is the next chapter for IBH.

Two more patients of mine died this past weekend. Two more on top of two more on top of two more. I have lost more patients in the last three years from opioid deaths than I have lost patients from all causes during my entire career. 

New CIPC faculty member, Dr. Paula Gardinar is an advocate of Integrative Medical Group Visits (IMGV).

Seeing patients and families as a group is not new to behavioral health professionals, but it is a more novel approach when the issue being addressed is medical rather than behavioral or a combination of both. 

The opioid epidemic inflicts significant human and economic damage in the United States. A July article in the New England Journal of Medicine by Drs. Sarah Wakeman and Michael Barnett provides a helpful summary of the myths and realities associated with buprenorphine (Suboxone) and the opioid epidemic.

The UMass Center for Integrated Primary Care continues to play an active role in training primary care teams to respond to the needs of patients with Opioid Use Disorder.

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