Integrated Care

Overview

Integrated health care (interprofessional care, coordinated care, or collaborative care) is a whole-person approach to delivering coordinated mental and physical health — all in one setting. This model of care acknowledges that:

  • Primary care settings, such as a doctor’s office, provide about half of all mental health care for common psychiatric disorders.
  • Adults with serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders also have higher rates of chronic physical illnesses and die earlier than the general population.
  • People with common physical health conditions also have higher rates of mental health issues.

As a result, coordinating mental health, substance use, and primary services provides the best possible outcomes for people with multiple healthcare needs. Many of Michigan’s community health centers are working toward care integration, functioning as veritable one-stop shops for all their patients’ needs.

Highlighted Topics

  • Integrated behavioral health care is the care a patient experiences as a result of a team of primary care and behavioral health clinicians, working together with patients and families, using a systematic and cost-effective approach to provide patient-centered care for a defined population. This care may address mental health and substance abuse conditions, health behaviors (including their contribution to chronic medical illnesses), life stressors and crises, stress-related physical symptoms, and ineffective patterns of health care. There are different levels of service integration and  the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration (SAMHSA) designed a framework to help health care providers plan and support an integrated system.
  • Substance use disorder (SUD) negatively affects millions of people across the country. In fact, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed that 21.6 million Americans had an SUD in 2019, but only 12 percent of those who needed treatment received it. More than half of Michigan’s community health centers are providing some form of SUD treatment, and they’ve increased the number of providers who can prescribe medication-assisted treatment (MAT) to their patient population. These frontline health center employees have been trained on Screening Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment, the American Society of Addiction Medicine Criteria, trauma-informed care, naloxone administration, and safe prescribing. Knowing that medication is one tool that can be used to treat substance use disorder, health centers have created integrated care teams that can treat the entire person.
  • Michigan Overdose Data to Action: Michigan Overdose Data to Action (MODA) is an initiative focused on supporting evidence-based overdose strategies through the use of data and by providing access to available training, resource and network supports. The purpose of the program is to strengthen and enhance the capacity of communities and health systems to prevent morbidity and mortality associated with opioid overdoses. The program is intentionally designed to bring surveillance teams and prevention teams together so that their work is more effective in decreasing rates of drug misuse, fatal and nonfatal drug overdose, and drug related ED visits. MODA funding has supported MPCA and members in building community partnerships to improve education and link patients to substance use disorder services and has funded health centers with purchasing of Azara technology focused on engaging providers and improving substance use disorder connections to care. MPCA is also in the second year of hosting a training series focused on SUD treatment with Mi-CCSI. The training series includes evidence-based clinical and operational topics and real life-examples from expert speakers.

Resources

Relevant Partners