SWEEP from Jan. 21-May 26: Integrating Behavioral Health with Primary Care

Doctor sitting down speaking with a patient

A Strategic Web-based Education & Engagement Plan (SWEEP) is a virtual, multi-event learning program. A SWEEP brings together technology, education, and support. It consists of presentations and small learning circles.

Improving Behavioral Health Outcomes

COVID-19 changed our world, impacting both our physical and mental health. Healthcare professionals are continuing to incorporate safety protocols to help identify COVID-19 cases and protect against spread.

But what is being done to help identify mental health conditions?

Join the IPRO QIN-QIO for an educational program to help primary care offices integrate behavioral health (BH) services (including anxiety and depression screenings) into everyday practice.

In this series, we’ll cover:

  • Building a business case for integrating and partnering with a BH organization.
  • Successful integration of BH into primary care.
  • Best practices for models of integration (collaboration with a BH organization, co-location of BH providers, and full integration of BH providers).

Who should participate?

  • Primary care practices and community of care coalition member hospitals.
  • Organizations that provide, integrate, or enhance their current BH services.

What are the benefits to participating?

  • Support primary care staff with meeting NCQA Patient-Centered Medical Home recognition.
  • Gain knowledge on how to implement an evidence-based BH intervention by completing a readiness assessment, creating a focused team, and identifying a clinical champion.
  • Potential revenue increases: integrate BH into the practice to address disparities in BH care access.

Our SWEEP Team

Featured Speaker

Henry Chung, M.D.
Senior Medical Director, Behavioral Health Integration Strategy, Care Management Organization (CMO), Montefiore Health System
Professor of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Dr. Chung has spent his career leading and participating in quality initiatives to integrate behavioral health into primary care practices. He has a wealth of experience in quality improvement, research and academic expertise implementing and improving the integration of behavioral health access and treatment in primary care, particularly for racial and ethnic minority patients. Dr. Chung was one of the first to demonstrate that the PHQ9 (a depression screening and monitoring patient self-report scale) was valid and reliable for use among African Americans, Latinos, and Asian Americans and then subsequently demonstrate that both psychiatrists and primary care clinicians can successfully use the PHQ9 to monitor and improve care for patients with depression. In addition, he has worked to integrate additional behavioral conditions including anxiety, PTSD and harmful drinking to the collaborative care model. 

Most recently with the support of the United Hospital Fund in New York City, he developed a new guide and framework for behavioral integration in primary care to support New York State Medicaid reform. This guide has received significant uptake in utilization to assess baseline practice readiness for integration as well as to document advancement in behavioral health integration. Currently, he leads a regional learning collaborative for 30 community based primary care and behavioral health providers among the Montefiore Hudson Valley Performing Provider Systems for the quality improvement of behavioral health integration. This initiative has resulted in dramatic improvements in depression and anxiety screening rates from less to than 40% at inception to greater than 80%, as well as improved performance on HEDIS and New York State QARR measures such as 30-day follow-up after mental health hospitalization, antidepressant adherence, and ADHD medication follow-up.