Treating the mind and body concurrently Integrative Care
Collaborating in an integrative care environment
Starting my journey as a doctoral student at Cummings Graduate Institute in the Doctorate of Behavioral Health has been transformative. As I embark on this journey to improve integrative care in mental health settings, I eagerly await the ability to learn trauma-informed care interventions and the successful framework to transform care delivery. The three key pillars I look forward to learning and implementing within my organization are multidisciplinary collaboration, shared decision-making, and lifelong relationship cultivation.
Multidisciplinary collaboration
Mental health professionals, nurse practitioners, and medical professionals must collaborate to operate in a single continuous communication system. This means being able to communicate, case conference, and make cohesive decisions that ultimately include the patient's "entire" well-being. This improves professionals' knowledge, allowing them to understand one another's profession. In this video, the American Psychological Association (APA) further explains the importance of collaborative care in integrative settings and its impact on patient care https://youtu.be/hl4rPBOKMQo.
Shared decision making
Learning to treat patients as active partners is developing my skill to focus on patient-centered treatment that honors the patient's preferences, values, and beliefs. Shared decision making will help me deliver person-first and bias-free care. Creating a bias-free environment will help ensure the client that all measures are taken to provide effective care.
Lifelong relationship cultivation
I want to create an organization that focuses on delivering care without restricting it to episodic treatment, similar to partial hospitalization care. As a DBH student, I am eager to learn how to be proactive, engaging in smaller touchpoints, and supporting long-term adherence, preventative wellness, and sustainable health habits.
Throughout my journey, I plan to continue my research on whether treatment outcomes improve with integrative care within a multidisciplinary team. I also want my organization to honor the professionals by giving back valuable time by optimizing care and data-sharing to eliminate redundancy and prevent gaps in patient-centered care. If you are an advocate for change in health care settings and want to see improvement in integrative care, please comment with your thoughts.