Integrated Health Care Delivery

Integrating Health Care Delivery at The Michael R. Zent Health Care Center

Aderonke Komolafe

Arizona State University

Integration of Care Integration of care is the collaboration of healthcare delivery between different medical disciplines. Within the context of this study, this definition focuses on integrating behavioral and physical health services for members with medical and mental health conditions. An integrated health care delivery system works to provide continuous, comprehensive primary and behavioral health care to reduce utilization, increase cost-savings and better health (Roby and Jones, 2016). It is also accountable, both clinically and fiscally, for the clinical outcomes and health status of the population or community

Physical health providers often focus on treating symptoms in an abrupt and fast pace style. On the other hand, behavioral health providers are more relaxed use open dialogue and focus on the emotional well-being of the patient. These cultural dynamics causes resistance in behavioral health staff’s acceptance and adjustment to provide integration services with the PCP. Reverse integration has unique challenges that range from system-level, clinician-level, member-level and payer level (Gleason, Truong, Biebel, Hobart, Kolodziej,

Ervin, William and Merrick (2014) report that to address needed cultural change in support of fuller integration of care, healthcare provider education and training programs must include training of practitioners on the diverse, often-complex, and unique care needs of individuals receiving integration of care services. Training should include: (1) the benefits of integration of care to patients and healthcare workers. (2) how to increase collaboration and coordination of care between the behavioral and physical health teams. (3) how to engage behavioral health patients and refer to the primary care program or vice versa (4) how to measure patient outcomes using the principles of Triple