Five minute read Hearing a child or youth say that they want to die can be a scary experience for any behavioral health professional. When I was a newly minted BHC, I found myself in a complex juggling act of supporting my medical team, taking my patient’s suicidal ideation (SI) seriously while understanding variations in […]
5 minute read. Original post available here. Starting and sustaining a movement in healthcare is tough business, unless there is a plan and resources for dissemination. The movement to integrate behavioral health services into primary care began in diverse places, but now appears to have serious momentum. The challenges facing integration today are many and include […]
15 minute read If you’re looking for a break from election and pandemic news, you came to the right place. This post covers the best research in integrated behavioral healthcare over the past 4-6 months. First, check out the recent special issue on pediatrics and collaborative care in the Pediatrics Annal journal. You will find […]
7 minute read I am writing this post on the tail-end of the CFHA 2020 conference. What an amazing time of coming together and re-orienting ourselves to this work! I have to admit to feeling fairly stressed during the conference as a clinician and behavioral health director. To some extent, this is often the case […]
5 minute read Although we can’t predict what the post-pandemic world will look like, it is certain that it will bear little resemblance to the period preceding the current crisis. Mobile health and Internet technologies have been developing at breakneck pace, reflecting the recent focus on telehealth, as well as the omnipresence of cell phones. […]
5 Minute Read This is a first. To our knowledge no systematic effort to account for the number of practices providing integrated behavioral health services in the United States has been undertaken, other than efforts to identify colocated providers in a geographical space. To be sure the data collected has its limitations and this blog […]
5 minute read Greetings, CFHA! My name is Norma Balli-Borrero, and this is my very first post as a newly minted member of the CFHA Blog Writing Team. My posts will center around being a BHC and research assistant working in Pediatrics. Some of my posts will be based on my own personal experience, while […]
3 minute read As COVID-19 progresses into its ninth month, there is growing concern about long-term psychological consequences for frontline workers, and their inability to self-monitor. Shell shock was a term first used during World War I to describe psychological trauma among soldiers who had served on the front lines. Researchers observing symptoms such as […]
3 minute read Reprint. Original post available here. Family functioning is one way to measure how a family meets its physical and psychological needs; in other words, it quantifies the family’s emotional environment1,2. Family functioning has been found to be associated with chronic physical and mental illness in children3–6; however, family functioning is not consistently […]
5 minute read Several years ago, I did an audit of PHQ-9 scores in our clinic and noticed that the total scores did not always match the individual item scores. Nurse, I need a calculator, stat. At the time, my team took a universal, paper-based screening approach for depression: patient answers questions on a clipboard; […]
5 Minute Read There is a necessary connection between our work in integrating behavioral health and medicine and the work of rooting out racism in health care. That connection lies at the root of what those of us who call ourselves champions of integrated care are doing: we are reforming a fragmented and too-often ineffective […]
2 minute read Older adults have been among those most impacted by the current pandemic, both physically and emotionally. In addition to advancing age, many such individuals suffer from chronic diseases that increase risk for unfavorable health outcomes should they contract COVID-19. Although self-isolation is keeping them healthy, many find quality of life to be […]
3 Minute Read I’ve been tempted to throw my laptop/ iPhone across the room in recent weeks. This coronavirus thing and the political and economic chaos it has wrought, not to mention the morbidity and mortality that accompanies it have pushed me to the brink. And many healthcare professionals have intimated to me that they […]
3 minute read The current pandemic has generated ongoing conversations on the topic of self-care, particularly as it relates to frontline workers who are experiencing unprecedented levels of burnout. In a recent study at Houston Methodist Hospital, researchers determined that working longer shifts, experiencing more loss of life, PPE supply shortages and fears of infecting […]
4 minute read To us nervous old guys, this pandemic is about risk and fear. I take early morning walks in my leafy hometown of Swarthmore, PA when the sun is still well below the treetops to avoid social contact and possibly contracting infection. But twice in recent weeks, I’ve turned a corner and run […]
4 minute read As we continue to move through historic change in our healthcare and criminal justice systems, the research on integration seems to have slowed down a bit. That said, we still have some important developments helping to move the field of integrated care forward. As always, I collect and review the latest research […]
12 minute read The COVID-19 pandemic, for all of the hardship and loss it has heaped upon the US healthcare system, has initiated a period of unparalleled innovation as well. A great deal of that innovation has been due to the courage and dedication of the physicians, nurses, and administrators on the front lines. Convention […]
3 minute read The COVID-19 pandemic has spawned two healthcare crises: the first focused on containing the disease’s widening footprint, and the second, a behavioral health pandemic created by stress, anxiety and social isolation. Addressing both of these issues requires a population health approach. As such, there is much to be learned from an innovative […]
