NYAPRS Members: National Council CEO and President Linda Rosenberg spoke to our MRLC in a November webinar where she shared the issues that behavioral healthcare is facing around the country and how New York is developing ways to provide recovery based yet effective and efficient services within the new regulations. In the article below, Linda begins to address the “Behavioral Health Center of Excellence” which was first described to us in our April 2013 webinar by National consultant, Dale Jarvis. Join Dale and Linda on December 11, 2013 from 2:00pm-3:00pm to learn how you can begin to transform your services into “Behavioral Health Centers of Excellence”. Registration links are below.
If you are not yet a member of the MRLC, contact Mary today at mary@naprs.org and ask to join the Medicaid Redesign Learning Collaborative (MRLC). Don’t miss out on helpful information, webinars by local and national experts, special resources, and forums to assure you are on the cutting edge of change. The MRLC is a NYAPRS Member only benefit. As an MRLC member you will have access to our newly redesigned MRLC portal which should be “live” by mid-January 2014.The new portal will have all of our webinar slides and links to “live” webinars, as well as special papers written just for our MRLC members, tools to make transformation a little easier and links to important web resources and DOH and OMH announcements and information.
What is a Behavioral Health Center of Excellence?
With her finger on the pulse of advocacy, practice improvement, and trends, Linda brings news from the field that you, or your work, can’t live without.
Linda Rosenberg
President and CEO, National Council for Behavioral Health
What is a Behavioral Health Center of Excellence?
December 4, 2013 | Behavioral Health Center of Excellence | Comments
As I travel around the country, I see the day-to-day realities of what health reform wonks call “pockets of innovation” — mental health and addiction provider organizations using creativity and sheer will to expand service capacity, build partnerships with other community resources, and train their staff. Whether they participate in state Medicaid health home demonstrations, develop back office practices to accept insurance plans through the new Marketplace Exchanges, or contract with local medical providers to form Accountable Care Organizations, many fundamental healthcare practices are changing — and affecting the way we do business and provide care on a daily basis. In this world of non-stop change influenced by today’s politics, it can be challenging to identify practice guidelines that will help your organization thrive. That’s where the concept of “Behavioral Health Centers of Excellence” comes in.
What is a Behavioral Health Center of Excellence?
We don’t know yet. It hasn’t been defined. That’s why the National Council for Behavioral Health has teamed up with Dale Jarvis and Associates to develop a Behavioral Health Center of Excellence framework for mental health and addiction service providers nationally. We are kicking off a six-month project to develop a definition, identify key elements, and begin working with centers across the country to field test and refine our ideas on what is a Center of Excellence. The initial concept of a Behavioral Health Center of Excellence is simple: “A Behavioral Health Center of Excellence will be known by the entire community as a great place to get care and a great place to work. It is an organization or program within an organization that is an integral part of the health neighborhood — providing rapid access to specialty behavioral health services that include high value, comprehensive, whole person care supporting resiliency, recovery, and results in excellent outcomes, and high client satisfaction.”
But, what does excellence mean to YOU?
It’s our goal to create a concept that organizations with diverse needs can adapt and implement into practice to ensure thriving futures. Regardless of your size, clinical scope, or budget size, this concept can be applied to the specifics of your organization to help you to be a Center of Excellence in your community. While we do not aim to create any sort of credentialing program, we will build standardized excellence practices that compliment and support the critical features of the new healthcare landscape. As of now, the core tenets of a Behavioral Health Center of Excellence include:
- World Class Customer Service Built on a Culture of Staff and Client Engagement and Wellness
- Excellent Outcomes
- Easy Access
- Comprehensive Care
- Excellent Value
Curious to learn more about how each of these elements are defined? The National Council and Dale Jarvis and Associates will host an introductory online roundtable for the behavioral health provider community on Wednesday, December 11, 2013, from 2:00 – 3:00 pm Eastern Time. Please register here and join us to talk more about the core features of a Behavioral Health Center of Excellence. During this roundtable, you will also learn how we plan to incorporate your feedback, thoughts, and experiences into the Behavioral Health Centers of Excellence track at the 2014 National Council Conference.