Implementing Integrated Mental Health and Chaplain Care in a National Quality Improvement Initiative

摘要

This paper describes the development, implementation, and outcomes of a quality improvement learning collaborative that aimed to better integrate chaplaincy with mental health care services at 14 participating healthcare facilities evenly distributed across the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Defense (DoD). Teams of healthcare chaplains and mental health professionals from participating sites sought to improve cross-disciplinary service integration in six key domains: screening; referrals; assessment; communication and documentation; cross-disciplinary training; and role clarification. Both chaplains and mental health providers across the entire facilities at participating sites were significantly more likely post collaborative to report having a clear understanding of how to collaborate and to report using a routine process for screening patients who could benefit from seeing the other discipline. Foundational efforts to enhance cross-disciplinary awareness and screening practices between chaplains and mental health professionals appearing particularly promising.