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Health & Wellness
As a community of providers, consumers and advocates we were distressed and mobilized by the late 2006 release of a national study documenting that people with mental illness and substance abuse treated by public agencies were dying 25 years younger than the general population, and that the gap was increasing. While 30 to 40% of those deaths (especially for people with substance use problems) are due to suicide and injury, 60% are due to medical conditions including cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, respiratory diseases and infectious diseases. We see this as a health inequity (PDF) issue.
The national discussion about healthcare reform has emphasized the need to ‘bend the cost curve’; that is, reduce the rapid growth in healthcare expenditures in our country. We know that improving care for people with chronic medical conditions and those who experience mental health and substance abuse disorders is essential to this effort. The viability of our community behavioral healthcare delivery system, and our place within a reformed healthcare system will depend on our ability to contribute to this effort to improve the overall health of our clients.
The concept of recovery is expanding to include wellness (PDF), with an understanding that the skills, resources and attitudes needed to achieve a good quality of life involve the whole person.
We are addressing this issue with multiple initiatives:
• Writing a consensus vision document to mobilize our Network and outline our evolving approaches to inclusion of wellness as an essential component of recovery support
• Working with state systems to develop mechanisms to bill for and document wellness supports as part of Medicaid services
• Improving monitoring of health status measures for individuals for whom we prescribe psychotropic medications
• Piloting co-location of behavioral health consultants within primary care and pediatric clinics to develop integrated care teams
• Creating in Linn County a collaborative case management project with the InterCommunity Health Network plan to assist our members dealing with serious mental illness and diabetes
• Partnering with the Marion Polk Community Health Plan and with one of our provider agencies to create a specialty clinic serving people suffering from chronic pain
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