Integrated model of primary and mental healthcare for the refugee population served by an academic medical centre

Abstract

Refugees are at increased risk for developing mental health concerns due to high rates of trauma exposure and postmigration stressors. Moreover, barriers to accessing mental health services result in ongoing suffering within this population. Integrated care—which combines primary healthcare and mental healthcare into one cohesive, collaborative setting—may improve refugees’ access to comprehensive physical and mental health services to ultimately better support this uniquely vulnerable population. Although integrated care models can increase access to care by colocating multidisciplinary services, establishing an effective integrated care model brings unique logistic (eg, managing office space, delineating roles between multiple providers, establishing open communication practices between specialty roles) and financial (eg, coordinating across department-specific billing procedures) challenges. We therefore describe the model of integrated primary and mental healthcare used in the International Family Medicine Clinic at the University of Virginia, which includes family medicine providers, behavioural health specialists and psychiatrists. Further, based on our 20-year history of providing these integrated services to refugees within an academic medical centre, we offer potential solutions for addressing common challenges (eg, granting specialty providers necessary privileges to access visit notes entered by other specialty providers, creating a culture where communication between providers is the norm, establishing a standard that all providers ought to be CC’ed on most visit notes). We hope that our model and the lessons we have learned along the way can help other institutions that are interested in developing similar integrated care systems to support refugees’ mental and physical health.