Integrated Care Management Training

CMSA’s Integrated Care Management Training Program helps clinical delivery and managed care organizations improve their assessment and treatment of medically complex patients, specifically individuals who face both physical and mental/behavioral health challenges.

Many patients suffer from mental illness along with other physical disease states. Often, these mental illnesses go untreated leading to additional problems for patients. For example, failure to treat depression can prevent proper treatment of other medical conditions as the patient lacks the motivation or desire to improve their health. This problem is less a matter of clinical indifference and more a reflection of the division that has occurred between physical health and mental health within the US healthcare system. Physical health care managers (e.g. nursing case managers, physicians, pharmacists, etc.) lack specific training in how to identify and coordinate treatment of mental and physical health problems. Rather, they focus solely on assisting with physical disease states. Likewise, mental health care managers (e.g. nurses, social workers, psychiatrists, etc.) often do not have the physical health background to coordinate treatment or relate mental health care to physical disease states that occur in patients with complex conditions where a mental health issues are but one aspect.

To address this critical issue, CMSA has partnered with INTERMED Foundation, a leader in integrated health assessment, and Cartesian Solutions, a consulting organization with extensive experience in advising companies in how to improved integrated health delivery, to launch the Integrated Care Management Training Program. This detailed program consists of four interrelated consulting and training steps:

Institutional Assessment: The program begins with a review of an institution’s readiness to implement an integrated health model. Some institutions face challenges in addressing the issue based on inherited silos of care delivery or cultural obstacles that interfere with better coordination between the medial aspects of the organization and the mental health areas.
Integration Consultation: Based upon information uncovered in the assessment, CMSA and its consulting partners will then work with the organization to change work practices and cultural dynamics to create the right climate for successful integrated health delivery.
Integrated Health Training: CMSA trains the organization’s care managers on several tools and practices designed to improve the assessment of medically complex patients evaluating both their physical and mental states and creating treatment plans that effectively address integrated health issues. The training is aimed at building trainers within the organization who can share these tools and practices internally without sending all staff to CMSA training.
Re-evaluation: On an ongoing basis experience Integrated Health personnel from CMSA will re-evaluate the organization to ensure that the new training and integrated health approach is delivering the desired results.

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"Many times since our training I have implemented the concept of integrated health with our case managers. I feel that I learned so much and many more tools to use in our daily work. Thank you to all for the great education."

Becki Pender, RN, CCP

"I enjoyed the class very much and have started to work with a local doctor to practice ICM. He does both medical and psychiatric practice together, how perfect! I am writing a new job description for myself at our home health and convinced the agency to add another Psych RN so I think we will be ready to start a group if this doctor wants to be our medical director. It is very exciting to get the help for people they need and I appreciate the ICM program very much."

Marie Leaf, RN-BC, CCM