CDU: Partnering to Improve Access and Care for Mental Health Services in South LA December 18th 2019
By Roberto Vargas, MD
COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
On December 18th the CDU College of Medicine, in collaboration with the Southside Coalition of Community Health Centers( SCCHC) co-hosted a Service Planning Area-6( SPA-6)“ Behavioral Health Summit.” The Summit provided primary care, mental health care, and social service providers with an opportunity for networking and information about our partnered efforts to enhance collaborative care for mental health and about the use of tele-psychiatry training to expand access to care and increase the behavioral health workforce in South Los Angeles.
Dr. Denise Shervington, Associate Dean of Graduate Medical Education and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at CDU, gave the plenary presentation“ Collaborative Care: Managing Mental Health Conditions in Primary Care Settings: Improving Access.” This presentation described models of“ Integrative Care” teams that include primary care and psychiatry providers with a review of the evidencebase for their cost and clinical effectiveness. CDU is actively involved in developing these models to improve access and quality of care for these services in South LA. This includes a current Health Resources and Services Administration funded grant for CDU to train family medicine residents and physician assistant students in these Integrative Care models led by Dr. Lisa Barkley, Chair of the Department of Family Medicine.
In addition, the Summit included a panel discussion with Dr. Amber Kondor a Psychiatrist from the Tele- Medicine Hub of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health( LA-DMH) and Dr. Christopher Benitez an associate medical director in LA-DMH served on a panel discussion that described how telehealth for psychiatry is actually implemented for South LA patients and community health center partners. This model is a key component of the newly developed tele-psychiatry curriculum for the psychiatry residency program at CDU. In its second year, the psychiatry residency program has returned the training of resident psychiatry physicians to South LA for the first time since the closure of the Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital in 2007 enhancing our opportunities to increase workforce capacity for this specialty in the region. The tele-psychiatry curriculum will provide the additional skills to allow these trainees and their supervising physicians to provide this service and to develop new programs that will expand access to psychiatric care for primary care partners in South LA and beyond.
In addition to networking opportunities the Summit conducted small group sessions focused on obtaining feedback and establishing action plans towards increasing collaborative care, expanding the use of telehealth, and enhancing provider support to prevent burnout. These sessions were facilitated by Kevin Hatcher, Sr. Project Administrator from the College of Medicine at CDU, Dr. Adrienne Martinez, a current National Clinician Scholar at UCLA and CDU Alumnus, and Dr. Roberto Vargas Assistant Dean for Health Policy in the College of Medicine at CDU.
The Summit and the development of the CDU psychiatry residency program ' s tele-health curriculum was supported by Health Net ' s Strategic Giving and Community Engagement Program. Throughout the year, Health Net partners with community-based organizations, local providers and government agencies across California to provide health care solutions in underserved communities – all as part of their mission to transform the health of the community, one person at a time. In addition, the planning and convening of the Summit would not have been possible without the support of Ms. Andrea Williams, executive director of the SCCHC.
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