NONPF 39th Annual Meeting
A major focus of this NP led interprofessional collaborative practice is the delivery of integrated mental health services into primary care. People with co-occurring mental and physical disorders (COD) have high morbidity, poorer quality of life, and account for a disproportionate share of healthcare costs. TEAMcare model for the delivery of integrated mental health and primary care was selected for the management of chronic illnesses. TEAMcare is a patient-centered intervention aimed to improve disease control for both medical and psychological illnesses by focusing on patients with poor glycemic, blood pressure, or lipid control, and coexisting depression. TEAMcare is a care management intervention that integrates collaborative depression care with systematic chronic illness care and treat-to-target interventions designed to improve multi-conditions (diabetes, depression, and coronary heart disease). Key components of the intervention are a patient-centered focus, collaborative goal setting, practical care planning, and consistent targeted patient and multidisciplinary healthcare team management (McGregor, Lin, Katon, 2011). The TEAMcare is delivered through group visits. Group visits or shared medical appointments are available to patients who desire them. Group visits are voluntary meetings for multiple patients who are working to manage one or more chronic diseases. The benefit of group visits is patients have access to the healthcare team and they are able to provide support for others who have the same diagnosis. Group visits provide a more efficient and satisfying visit for the patient and members of the healthcare team. In addition, patients have the opportunity to interact with persons who are having similar health experiences. Reported benefits of group visits include: increased patient satisfaction, improved health behaviors, improvement in ADA standards of care, improved provider-patient relationships, reduction in obesity, improved quality of life, improved control of mean blood glucose, reduction in blood pressure and cholesterol, decrease in emergency and urgent care visits, decreased referrals to specialists, decrease in HbA1c levels, better medication compliance and increased self-efficacy (Braksmaijer, Trilling, 2006).
