Making Room for Mental Health in the Medical Home

This November 2010 Preventing Chronic Disease article from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discusses the importance of coordinating mental health care with general medical care, particularly through use of the medical home model of integrated health care delivery.

Key elements of medical home and coordinated care models are reviewed with a description of how such approaches can enhance quality and outcomes for children and adolescents, for whom early detection and treatment of mental illness is critical; the general adult population, which receives the bulk of its mental health care in medical settings; and people with serious mental illnesses, who increasingly receive both their mental and primary care in mental health settings. Programs implemented in the New York State public mental health system serve as examples of efforts to better coordinate medical and mental health services.