FY 2024 behavioral health service expansion - applicant: heart of texas community health center D/B/a waco family medicine address: 1600 providence drive, waco, TX 76707-2261 project director: DR

Jackson griggs project geographic area: mcclellan, hill, and bell counties in texas federal request: $1,100,000 hrsa 330 grant: H80CS00719 waco family medicine will increase the number of patients receiving mental health and SUD services, including patients receiving treatment with MOUD by: designing and implementing a behavioral health champion training program. This program will improve the systems' capacity to detect, evaluate, and treat behavioral health disorders commonly seen in primary care, including substance use disorders and the provision of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). The training will be longitudinal, including periodically iterative continuing education sessions and regular synchronous collaborative learning (e.g., peer learning network similar to a project echo). Training will also include apprenticed training regularly alongside WFM's clinical psychologist and other behavioral health faculty physicians. These sessions will be supported by faculty from the massachusetts hospital psychiatry visting. Developing enduring educational materials to support the behavioral health champion training activities. These materials will enhance clinicians' understanding of behavioral health disorder evaluation and treatment (e.g., short teaching videos or written primers on specific behavioral health disorders). The enduring materials will be developed for use at the point of care to ensure maximal usability and effectiveness and will be available to all clinicians in the WFM system. Develop standardized clinical pathways for behavioral health. Medical literature shows that clinical outcomes for disorders such as depression treated in primary care are comparable to treatment outcomes in specialty mental health clinics if primary care clinicians are involved; however, primary care clinicians often require structured clinical pathways to achieve these results. WFM will develop standardized clinical pathways using the principles of measurement-based care to systematize the detection, treatment, and coordination of care for common behavioral health disorders. This will include optimizing the electronic medical record by including validated psychometric tools and providing clinical decision support to clinicians to treat behavioral health disorders. Implementing standardized clinical pathways would also maximize the utility of the whole team (e.g., nurses, behavioral health providers, and care managers) by providing a common language for evaluating and treating behavioral health disorders. Hiring a licensed behavioral health provider (i.e., a clinical social worker at 1.0 FTE) to provide behavioral health interventions (e.g., brief cognitive behavioral therapy) for patients in our addiction medicine clinic.