[NYAPRS Enews] GNS: NYS Restructures its MH Treatment Approach

[Matt Canuteson]

NYAPRS Note: The New York State Health Foundation is providing a $3.2
million grant over four years to the National Development and Research
Institutes Inc. to coordinate a Center of Excellence for the Integration
of Care in New York State (CEIC).  CEIC, pronounced "seek", will offer
longitudinal training and technical assistance to support over 1,200
mental health and chemical dependency treatment providers in New York
State to increase their capacity to offer integrated treatment services
for people with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. 

Through a combination of activities such as onsite dual diagnosis
capability assessments (DDCAT and DDCMHT), onsite technical assistance
along with regional activities such as leadership forums, implementation
academies and learning communities, participating mental health and
chemical dependency treatment providers will have the opportunity to
shift practices towards an integrated focus on recovery. NYAPRS is proud
to be an active partner in this initiative. 

 

State Restructures Its Mental Health Treatment Approach

By Cara Matthews  Gannett News Service  Albany Bureau   January 9, 2009

 

ALBANY -- Rather than having people with drug and mental-health problems
go through two different treatment systems, New York will start allowing
patients to get help for both at the same time and in the same office,
officials announced Friday.

 

The New York State Health Foundation is providing a $3.2 million grant
over four years to establish a statewide Center of Excellence for the
Integration of Care, which will train workers in the state's 1,223
licensed mental-health and substance-abuse clinics to identify and treat
patients with both types of conditions. The New York City-based National
Development and Research Institutes Inc. will oversee the center.

 

"Anybody in this state with a dual diagnosis, we will do anything
possible to promote their dual recovery," said Karen Carpenter-Palumbo,
commissioner of the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse
Services.

 

Just 10 percent of 1.4 million New Yorkers who fall into this category
receive treatment that has been proven successful for both disorders,
while 50 percent get no care at all, according to the foundation.

 

When people with co-occurring disorders are untreated, they have a
higher risk of serious medical conditions, violence, homelessness,
suicide, early death and other problems. Hospitalized people with mental
illness and substance-abuse disorders are five times more likely to be
re-hospitalized compared to those without addiction problems.

 

"This means that the coordination and integration of care for these
medical conditions is just non-existent today," said James Knickman,
president and CEO of the Health Foundation.

 

Mental-health and substance-abuse agencies traditionally have operated
in isolation of one another, the commissioners of the state offices of
Mental Health and Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services said. By
coordinating care and training workers, and sharing billing codes that
have until now been the domain of one or the other agency, this will
change, they said. The new system will prevent the need for agencies to
get two different licenses and keep the treatment and billing separate.

 

The agencies and state have moved from denial to acceptance that it's
necessary to break down barriers, said state Mental Health Commissioner
Michael Hogan. Coordinated care is more effective than what's known as
"sequential" or "parallel" treatment, he said.

 

The new initiative grew out of a state task force's recommendations.

 

Carpenter-Palumbo said the fractured system has been difficult for
patients, who might go to a mental-health clinic and then be told they
have to get help for their drug problem or addiction at another clinic
across town.

 

Besides the personal costs, the problems take a large toll on society,
officials said. Up to 80 percent of the cost of the state's Medicaid
program for the poor and disabled is for high-need patients with chronic
illnesses, including physical, mental and substance-abuse conditions.
Lost productivity for people with both mental-health and drug problems
adds up to more than $100 billion a year in New York, they said.

 

Mathew Mathai, a 38-year-old Indian American who grew up in Rochester
and Brighton, Monroe County, said he and his family had a difficult
experience trying to get the care he needed for his mental-health and
substance-abuse problems. He has bipolar disorder and tried to take his
own life when he was 15, and his difficulties progressed as he used
illegal drugs. It was only through peer support and professionals who
were involved in both systems that he recovered, he said.

 

"I was acting on the belief that I was better off dead for many years,"
said Mathai, deputy director of the New York Association of Psychiatric
Rehabilitation Services. He currently lives outside Albany.

 

Training will focus on recovery, and it will be based on research and
practices that are known to be effective and sensitive to different
cultures, said JoAnn Sacks, executive director of the National
Development and Research Institutes. The plan is that in four years, 90
percent of clinics will have standardized screening for co-occurring
disorders, 90 percent will have implemented uniform assessment
approaches and 60 percent will be have the capacity to deliver treatment
for this population at the same location. The institute has worked with
38 other states on coordinating care, she said.

 

http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20090109/NEWS01/901090354
<http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20090109/NEWS01/901090354>  

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://kilakwa.net/pipermail/nyaprs_kilakwa.net/attachments/20090112/c19f1806/attachment.html>