A&C wins IBJ Healthcare Heroes Award
Breaking Down Silos in Care Organizations of every kind struggle to break down work silos, those known enemies of efficiency and effectiveness. The stakes are even higher in health care delivery, where silos can be not just expensive, but deadly. Adult & Child Center, a not-for-profit community mental health center founded in Indianapolis more than 60 years ago, has been on a mission for more than a decade to tear down silos and improve the health of its patients. By integrating the work of behavioral health and primary care providers, Adult & Child is improving the lives of teenagers and adults who struggle with mental and physical health disorders. “There are no silos that separate our minds from our bodies,” said Allen Brown, CEO of Adult & Child, which has eight offices spread among Marion, Johnson and Bartholomew counties. “It makes sense to look at an individual’s total health and create an integrated plan.” And that’s what Adult & Child has been doing since research emerged more than 10 years ago revealing that people with mental health conditions die, on average, about 25 years earlier than the general population. “Integrated care has been on our agency’s executive dashboard for the last eight to 10 years,” Brown said. And it’s been in practice since 2010, when Adult & Child added primary care doctors to its main clinic at 8320 Madison Ave. More than 500 adults received integrated care in the first three years of the service. In 2013, through a partnership with The Jane Pauley Community Health Center, integrated service was extended to children as young as 13. Read the full here
Adult & Child Partners with Jane Pauley CHC for Integrated Health
Adult & Child Center is partnering with the Jane Pauley Community Health Center to provide primary care services within Adult & Child’s behavioral health offices at 8320 Madison Ave., Indianapolis. The new integrated health clinic offers a team approach to total health care for ages 13 and older. The clinic opened its doors on Tuesday, December 15, 2015. Integrated Care is a team approach that helps individuals be their healthiest selves – mind and body – by receiving coordinated whole health services all at one location. The Jane Pauley at Adult & Child Integrated Health Clinic will provide a full range of primary care and behavioral health services to address an individual’s physical and mental health. “We know that individuals with mental health needs are at greater risk of having co-occurring chronic physical illness,” said Allen Brown, Adult & Child CEO. “This is an opportunity for behavioral health staff to work collaboratively with primary care staff to consider how someone’s physical health may be impacting their mental health, and vice versa.” Marc Hackett, Executive Director of The Jane Pauley Community Health Center, said, “We are committed to providing affordable, accessible, and high-quality primary care services. Our expansion of clinic sites demonstrates the community’s need for low-cost, convenient primary care. This unique behavioral health partnership with Adult and Child helps us better meet the community’s needs for total health.” We are proud to be one of only a few partnerships in the State of Indiana to leverage the resources of a Federally Qualified Health Center, a Community Mental Health Center, and a Licensed Child Placement Agency to collectively improve the lives of people who experience physical health concerns, mental illness, addictions, and trauma. About Adult & Child: Adult & Child is a non-profit agency with services that help people live healthier lives and reach their goals. We support people of all ages, impacting every area of life. Our behavioral health and child welfare staff partner with clients to help them set goals for mental wellness and self-sufficiency, and meet those goals. About The Jane Pauley Community Health Center: Established in 2009, The Jane Pauley Community Health Center serves the local community, regardless of insurance or income, with an emphasis on integrating medical and behavioral health. The center also focuses on the management of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiac disease and depression. They served 5,870 unique patients in 2012.
An Innovative Approach: Opening the State’s First “Tech-Enabled Behavioral Health Home”
Adult and Child has received a grant from the Division of Mental Health and Addiction (DMHA) to open a Tech-Enabled Behavioral Health Home, the first in the State of Indiana to integrate a web-based platform in their program design. People with mental illness die, on average, 25 years younger than the rest of the population, often due to unmanaged chronic disease. This pilot program addresses the poor mental and physical health outcomes among adults experiencing a serious mental illness and gives them a single “home” for their coordinated health care services. “We are excited to expand our services, and improve support for adults’ total health needs,” said Allen Brown, CEO at Adult and Child Center. “In addition to supporting our goals of improved health care for our clients, this model is of particular interest to many of our community partners because it allows for one stop health care shopping, social support engagements, supported employment, housing access, and on-going quality care. We believe this pilot will demonstrate both improved health outcomes and significant cost savings in treating people with serious mental illness.” About the Tech-Enabled Behavioral Health Home The Tech-Enabled Behavioral Health Home is aimed at improving all health outcomes, while decreasing the costs of care. Adults who struggle with co-occurring mental and chronic physical health conditions comprise 5% of the population, but are estimated to use 50% of the available health care funding, due to their inability to effectively manage their illnesses. Research demonstrates adults who experience a serious mental illness, when left to their own devices, do not effectively manage their health (mental or physical); often resulting in early mortalities and significantly increased costs of care (increased duration and frequency of inpatient stays and increased inappropriate health care expenses). The primary guiding principles of this program are based upon the idea that mental illness is treatable; and that the role of A&C staff is to guide and support consumers in their recovery. Core elements of the Behavioral Health Home Pilot include disease self-management supports, patient focused delivery system design, clinical decision support, clinical information systems, and encouraging community linkages. Tech-Enabled Behavioral Health Home services will be available to adults who reside in Marion and Johnson counties, and who experience serious mental health and co-occurring primary care disorders.
Neighborhood Based Mental Health Project
Outreach Services to Minorities and Refugees Adult and Child Center is very excited to announce a grant award from the Indiana Department of Mental Health and Addictions to embed behavioral health staff into neighborhood based programs which are focused on serving minority populations around Greater Indianapolis. This multiple year project will embed staff in programs at Esperanza Ministries, BACI-Indy, and Catholic Charities starting January 2016. With the implementation of HIP 2.0 in Indiana, and the steady uptick in the minority populations in and around Indianapolis, Adult and Child Center is beginning to see an increase in the demand for behavioral health services from non-english speaking populations. “We are very excited to have great partners like BACI, Esperanza, and Catholic Charities on this project. Each of them are amazingly mission driven and focused on improving the general health and well-being of their consumers. This project is very unique and exciting because while we are embedding clinical staff in new cultures, we will also use Peer Specialist to bridge the language and cultural divide. A Peer Specialist is someone from a particular culture who is also well versed in the delivery of behavioral health services.” said Dan Arens, Director of Business Development at Adult and Child Center. This project is the first of many programs A&C hopes to implement in Central Indiana focused on providing increased access to behavioral health services. “A significant part of Adult and Child Center’s Neighborhood Based Mental Health plan involves better engagement of minority populations. A&C is proud to have partnered with 3 minority focused agencies in this proposal. The plan of operation involves developing a low cost model of engagement from within these minority communities. In order to break through generationally engrained cultural barriers and stigma around mental health and addictions, Adult and Child Center is proposing an innovative model. Through this model, Adult and Child Center will leverage both a full-time LCSW with special interest in supporting minority populations AND specially trained bi-lingual peer specialists from each partner agency culture to identify, engage, and support the populations targeted within this proposal. The goal of this project is to increase mental health service usage rates among targeted minority populations. The critical components of improving access to care include culturally sensitive engagement, relationship building, education, and warm hand-offs.”
