218673 Share the care: Integrating aging and mental health services

Tuesday, November 9, 2010 : 1:00 PM - 1:15 PM

Cynthia Zubritsky, PhD , Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
The administration and funding of aging and behavioral health services has traditionally had separate and distinct systems of care. These fragmented services often result in substandard care and ineffective treatment outcomes for older adults with mental illnesses. Developing a cross-system infrastructure combining these separate systems of care addresses both the fragmentation at the systems level and MH treatment needs of older adults. This presentation describes the strategies that the Pennsylvania Department of Aging (PDA) and the Pennsylvania State Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (OMHSAS) have undertaken to improve their systems' infrastructures to provide integrated services across their systems of care. The Center for Mental Health Policy Services Research, University of Pennsylvania in partnership with the PDA and OMHSAS designed “Share the Care” to address systems' coordination between the aging and mental health systems.

“Share the Care” outcomes include expanded organizational effectiveness and transformation of the distinctive organizational cultures of the two systems through:

1) A cross-systems' Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) to expand technical assistance in reviewing and writing MOUs designed to work together to provide behavioral health and aging services to older adults in their counties; and 2) an integrated case review process to develop collaborative problem-solving between aging and behavioral health agencies both onsite and electronically through linked video conferencing.

Learning Areas:
Public health administration or related administration
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines
Public health or related research
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
Identify system barriers to aging and mental health systems integration; Describe current national access to and quality of aging and mental health services; Understand the process of systems’ integration using “Share the Care” activities; and Design multiple collaborative case reviews processes.

Keywords: Mental Health System, Aging

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: As the Director of Integrated Primary Care and Behavioral Health Initiatives for the Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research, I have extensive experience in management and organizational issues in behavioral healthcare systems, including integrated systems design, outcome measurement, quality assurance measurement, process evaluation and cultural measures for behavioral health and aging systems. I am a senior fellow at the Penn-MARCH Institute, the Leonard Davis Institute and the University of Pennsylvania Institute on Aging.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4207.0: Mental health services and utilization