MONROE, La. (PRWEB)
June 22, 2021

Northeast Delta Human Services Authority (NEDHSA) continues its behavioral health and primary health care integration as a progressive approach to reaching the best outcomes in caring for people with multiple healthcare needs.

Improving the physical health status of people with mental illnesses and addictions is one of NEDHSA’s objectives. Therefore, NEDHSA identified primary care settings to serve those individuals who had become the gateway to the behavioral health system.

NEDHSA Executive Director Dr. Monteic A. Sizer said primary care and behavioral care partnerships succeed when proper supports and resources to screen and treat individuals with behavioral and general health care needs are shared between entities.

“The integrative behavioral health and primary care model ensures that our citizens have access to the care they need, no matter where they enter the healthcare system,” Dr. Sizer said. “Our integrated model goes further than traditional models and addresses negative social determinants of health. For example, we’ve added housing, workforce development, and prevention and wellness strategies in our model.”

The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) North America, a research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, selected NEDHSA’s model as a winner of its Health Care Delivery Innovation Competition. NEDHSA’s integrative model includes collaborative work with regional partners in prevention, education, business, and in regional municipalities and parishes to serve the region. In addition, J-PAL cited NEDHSA’s work in providing patients with access to quality behavioral health care, integrated primary care, and social services.

NEDHSA was selected as one of four state-wide grantees by the Louisiana Department of Health, Office of Behavioral Health, to be awarded the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Promoting Integration of Primary and Behavioral Healthcare (PIPBHC) grant.

The PIPBHC five-year grant promotes full integration and collaboration of behavioral and primary healthcare, improving adults’ overall wellness and physical health with serious mental illness by offering integrated healthcare services, screening, diagnosis, prevention, and mental health treatment for substance disorders co-occurring with physical health conditions.

NEDHSA rededicated its Bastrop Behavioral Health Clinic as a fully integrated behavioral and primary health center to address the complex needs of those battling mental illness, substance use disorders, and primary health challenges.

Dr. Sizer said the integration of behavioral and primary health is critical to “our ability to help mitigate complex health problems experienced by many in our region.”

“With the incorporation of our evidence-based prevention and social determinants of health initiatives, we are well on our way to improving population health outcomes in northeast Louisiana,” Dr. Sizer said.

NEDHSA learned about the complex needs many citizens face in mental health, addictive disorders, developmental disabilities, and prevention arenas through a series of town hall meetings and additional community events.

“Families and caregivers experience constant frustration trying to care for the people they love most,” Dr. Sizer said. “We know it’s difficult for persons with a dual diagnosis to obtain competent behavioral healthcare services.”

The integrated care model continues to evolve and grow as NEDHSA also launched its Faith Partnership Initiative that provides in-depth training in four areas: awareness, readiness, development, and sustainability.

Sizer added: “We understand that you cannot separate behavioral health from primary health. We also understand that you cannot separate these systems from the ecosystems they interact with. This fundamental understanding is the ‘why’ behind what we do at NEDHSA.”

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