A new clinic in Tucson, Ariz., is aiming to improve care quality for the mentally ill by integrating primary care and psychiatric care, according to an Arizona Daily Star article.
While housing mental health professionals and primary care physicians in the same building is not a new concept, Banner's Whole Health Clinic — which opened Feb. 2 — utilizes an innovative team approach to care for patients.
Every morning, employees come together to discuss patients and collaborate on plans for comprehensive care. All team members are considered equal.
"An individual can come here and receive psychiatric assessment, come for therapy and groups, as well as come when they have a sore throat or need an immunization," clinic director Patricia Harrison-Monroe, PhD, said to the Daily Star.
People living with serious mental illness often subsist on low incomes, lack adequate information about healthy diets and typically don't have access to consistent medical care, according to Whole Health Clinic leaders. These factors contribute to a startling fact in Arizona: Individuals suffering from serious mental illness typically die three decades earlier than those not afflicted, according to the Daily Star.
Though it's too early to tell just how effective this new treatment strategy will be, there is optimism that the strategy will pay off.
Clarke Romans, PhD, executive director of the Southern Arizona chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, told the Star, "The notion that doctors should be in teams and treat across a continuum is good...at least in theory I believe it must be better."