2024 Integrated Behavioral Health Awards
To highlight and support the work of academic health systems providing innovative and exemplary IBH training and health care delivery programs, the AAMC launched the Integrated Behavioral Health Awards. Now in its second year, the AAMC is recognizing the next set of institutions making a significant impact in mental and behavioral health care access.
Program Summaries
The AAMC is proud to officially announce the 2024 Integrated Behavioral Health awardees. The following programs demonstrate a commitment to equitable and whole-person care by leveraging interdisciplinary collaboration, developing unique approaches to interprofessional education, and partnering with communities to center patient voices and improve patient care.
Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center
Advancing Reproductive Mental Health Equity through OBH Integrated Behavioral Health
The OB IBH program at Boston Medical Center (BMC) is embedded in the OBGYN department and incorporates the Women’s Integrated Behavioral Health Framework. This includes behavioral health screening, interdisciplinary collaboration, stepped care, innovative engagement (hybrid telehealth), and trauma informed, culturally adapted care to serve the diverse perinatal population at BMC. Colocation facilitates collaboration between obstetrical providers, mental health specialists, and care managers to reduce barriers to perinatal services and improve obstetrical and mental health outcomes.
Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Integrated Primary Care Program
Our primary care clinics are located in medically underserved communities and predominately care for racially and ethnically marginalized communities and high numbers of immigrant and refugee families. Teams include medical social workers, pharmacists, community health workers, medical-legal partners, care managers, integrated psychologists (PCBH model), and co-located master’s level therapists. Care is most commonly provided within interdisciplinary team-based encounters to reduce transportation, employment, and educational burden and to improve collaboration around a single treatment plan.
University of Chicago
The UChicago Primary Care-Behavioral Health Integration Program: A Multi-Level, Interdisciplinary Intervention to Increase Primary Care Capacity to Manage Mental and Behavioral Health Conditions
Our IBH program is located on Chicago’s South Side, which are overwhelmingly Health Professional Shortage Areas for primary and mental health care. We use continuous quality improvement to decrease barriers to mental health care. We develop, implement, and maintain embedded clinical decision support systems and resources for common behavioral health conditions. Our IBH program reaches over 1000 clinicians, including all trainees in the internal medicine, pediatrics, medicine-pediatrics, and psychiatry residency programs. We also provide direct patient care through the PCBH clinic, which is located in the academic faculty and resident internal medicine clinic, and through the CoCM, which is available for four primary care clinics and all adolescent and neurology patients.
University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus
Colorado Integrated Behavioral Health Plus (CIBH+): Aligning Behavioral Health within a Generalist Approach to Primary Care
CIBH+ builds on traditional integrated care by embedding a full continuum of physical, behavioral, and psychosocial experiences using a generalist approach. CIBH+ creates a health home for all patients, not just those diagnosed with specific conditions. Its stepped care includes population-based screening and patient-centered care plans encompassing prevention to acute treatment. Collaborating Provider Setting: CIHB+ comprises a diverse team of PCPs, embedded psychologists and care managers, and virtual psychiatrists, offering fully integrated, evidence-based interventions. Psychiatrists consult with PCPs to improve behavioral health competencies, and digital tools support team communication. Patient Population: CIBH+ covers seven family medicine clinics across metro-Denver that care for a total annual patient population of 90,000.
2023 Mental and Behavioral Health Training Awardees
- Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center — IBH Training Program in Pediatric Primary Care (CCHMC IBHP)
- Georgetown University Medical Center — A Faculty Train-the-Trainer Program in Integrated Behavioral Health and Primary Care
- Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine Department of Primary Care and Rural Medicine — Integrated Behavioral Health Training Program (IBH TP)
- University of California, Davis, School of Medicine — Expanding Behavioral Health Integration Training Across Medical Disciplines and Health Professions Through Integrated Behavioral Health Services (IBHS)