October 31, 2024- The head and the body are one connected system and should be treated as such, said Diane Powers, MA, MBA. “We know from many research studies that behavioral health conditions worsen medical conditions and vice versa,” she said. “It makes sense to treat them together.”
That is one of the chief goals of the AIMS Center, of which Powers is Co-Director. The AIMS Center was created 20 years ago to help healthcare organizations, clinicians, payers, and policymakers implement the Collaborative Care Model (CoCM) – a method of integrating behavioral health services into primary care and other medical settings using the principles of the chronic care model. Specifically, it is a patient-centered and population health approach that uses measurement-based treatment to target and evidence-based interventions to achieve significantly better patient outcomes as compared with usual care.
CoCM adds a behavioral health care manager and a psychiatric consultant to the primary care or medical team. They use a population health registry to support their work. CoCM has been proven in over 90 research studies worldwide to get more patients better faster than other approaches, even when usual care includes a co-located therapist in the primary care clinic.
Continue Reading in the latest issue of Repertoire Magazine.