The UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health has partnered with the North Carolina Area Health Education Centers (NC AHEC), and the North Carolina Psychiatric Association and established the North Carolina Community Mental Health Medical Directors' Network. The Network supports psychiatrists and other physicians in their new role as leaders of clinical care in the restructured mental health system.
This first-of-its-kind statewide-organization offers medical directors from the newly formed Critical Access Behavioral Health Agencies (CABHAs) and Local Management Entities (LMEs), as well as psychiatrists affiliated with Community Care of North Carolina (CCNC):
"It's vital that medical directors have the support they need to fashion this new approach to better mental health care," says John Gilmore, MD, director of the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health. "And providing psychiatrists with what they need to be effective leaders is what the Center is all about."
For more information about the Medical Directors' Network or to join the listserv, please contact Alice Lockhart at alice_lockhart@med.unc.edu
ABOUT CABHAs:
In January 2011, North Carolina’s public mental health system was restructured around Critical Access Behavioral Health Agencies (CABHAs), sites of comprehensive clinical evaluation and integrated treatment. Each CABHA is required to have a medical director to oversee the clinical enterprise, ensuring that clinical care being delivered by the agency is evidence-based, appropriate for the clinical needs of each patient, and cost-effective.
To a degree this may be true, but for some people with schizophrenia, medications do not completely control the positive symptoms (hallucinations, delusions, and disorganized behavior), nor do they have much effect on the negative symptoms (brief or no replies in conversation, lack of motivation, inability to experience pleasure, blunted affect), or cognitive symptoms (impaired attention, memory, and executive functioning). Given that these other symptoms can affect a person's ability to function as much as or even more than the positive symptoms, it's clear that the medications we have currently are not always enough to return a person to full recovery. That's why we recommend a team approach to treatment that includes medications and psychosocial interventions.
Founded in January 2009, the Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health is part of the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Addressing quality of care and workforce development issues in North Carolina's mental health system, the Center and its clinical programs are supported by a three-year grant from The Duke Endowment, as well as Cross Area Services Program (CASP)
funds. The program operates in conjunction with multiple university, state, and community-based partners.
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