Week 1 – Assignment: Explore Topics of Interest

Week 1 – Assignment: Explore Topics of Interest

The Collaborative Care within the Realms of Psychology

Mental health issues are complex and people with mental disorders take experience a myriad of issues that complicate the process of assessment, intervention, and recovery. Complete recovery from mental illness can take months or even years. During that time, a person requires immense support as they navigate through various departments within the health system. In the mental health system, there is a mismatch between supply and demand because of resource limitations and other historical issues such as stigmatization. As such, a collaborative model is used to enhance service delivery in mental health and the wider health sector by linking primary care with other agencies, as well as resources required by mental health service users. The collaborative care model enables various providers to work together and provide enhanced, safe, and effective care to individuals through an integrated system of intervention and progress monitoring. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the collaborative care model and integrated care are utilized in the field of health psychology

Integrated Care and Collaborative Care

In collaborative care, the primary care provider works with psychiatric consultants and care managers to develop common goals for an individual, followed by intervention and monitoring of progress. On the other hand, is an organized system of care characterized by collaboration, effective communication, and coordination to make the care approach seamless, efficient, and highly responsive to the needs of service users (Raney, 2015). The collaborative care model approach is highly essential in mental health because it encourages long-term progress monitoring of individuals with mental illnesses, which improves the chances of successful recovery. Recovery for people with mental illness takes time and requires long-term monitoring and support; otherwise, the chances of relapse are high. With the shortage of psychiatrists and other mental health providers, individuals who have mental health issues such as addiction do not receive enough support required to enable successful healing. The CCM model in health psychology seeks to solve the problem of shortage by integrating care so that primary care providers can work with psychiatrists through communication and coordination of care.

The collaborative care model (CCM) is utilized in the field of health psychology to enhance health outcomes for individuals with complex mental health cases. According to Phelps and James (2017), sometimes the primary care providers encounter complex cases, for example, bipolar, that requires the input of psychiatry to ascertain accurate diagnosis and effective intervention. Furthermore, individuals with mental health issues often present with comorbid situations such as depression and alcohol addiction, further complicating the process. Hence, it is not plausible to handle such cases with a single clinician (Ee et al., 2020). The CCM model ensures that a consultant psychiatrist collaborates with the primary care provider so that he/she can contribute their expertise in complex cases to ensure the accuracy of diagnosis and treatment effectiveness. In the CCM model, psychiatrists play a critical role in educating primary care providers on diagnosis and intervention for various mental health conditions (Carlo et al., 2021). For example, psychiatrists can show primary care providers how to diagnose bipolar by recognizing that cases of the condition fall on a spectrum that runs from unipolar to bipolar. Moreover, psychiatrists can also create clinical approaches in primary care that enable providers to diagnose various mental health conditions, especially the ones that present with similar symptoms, for example, bipolar and depression (Phelps & James, 2017).

Apart from primary care, a collaborative care model has also been implemented in community centres to enhance the coordination and integration of care across communities. Community health centres serve many patients with mental health conditions; hence benefit from care coordination to locate resources and other necessary elements needed to provide care to the service users. According to LaBelle et al. (2016), the implementation of CCM at the community level enables access to treatment by many people because of wider geographical coverage. Additionally, the CCM at the community level enhances the engagement of marginalized populations and other underserved communities, ensuring that they access mental and behavioral care services (LaBelle et al., 2016). The collaborative care model in health centres also ensures that there is coordination and open communication between medical providers and behavioral health practitioners, which not only translates to positive health outcomes for patients but also a stigma reduction. Stigma remain