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New Center for Integrated Behavioral Health Policy Chartered; Will Focus on Policies to Increase Treatment of Mental Illness and Addiction

posted: June 10, 2008, 9:30 AM

WASHINGTON —The George Washington University Medical Center has chartered a new Center for Integrated Behavioral Health Policy, which is dedicated to changing the way that people with mental health and substance use disorders get the help they need.

“Health reform is among this nation’s most pressing problems, said Ruth J. Katz, JD, MPH, dean of the School of Public Health and Health Services. “This new center will make a valuable contribution to this debate by helping to design a system that both recognizes and includes the needs of millions of Americans suffering from mental illness, substance use disorders and addiction.”

The Center will work with employers and public health care purchasers, health plans, physicians and other health care providers, and government leaders to create policies and practices that integrate behavioral and physical health.

“The Center will capitalize on its proximity to government, business, and health care leaders to address national issues like health care reform, changing health care financing incentives, and promoting quality standards,” said Sara Rosenbaum, JD, chair of the Department of Health Policy. The Center is located in the Department of Health Policy, one of the nation’s top-ranked health policy departments.

Now that the Center for Integrated Behavioral Health Policy has been established, the key program areas will include:

National Health Care Reform: The Center will lead a collaborative of 51mental health and substance use treatment and prevention organizations to inform the national debate about how to improve America’s health care.
Behavioral Health Screening and Brief Intervention: The Center will work with employers, health plans, employee assistance programs, and other health systems to improve the early identification and treatment of depression, addiction, and other behavioral health problems.
Solving Behavioral Health Problems: The Center will develop innovative solutions to difficult national behavioral health problems. Projects will include integrating behavioral health into electronic health records, developing new visions for federal behavioral health agencies, and creating nation-wide performance standards for health plans and employee assistance programs.
Health Care Financing: The Center will bring together insurers and health care providers to develop financial incentives for improved treatment access and quality of care.

The Center began as Ensuring Solutions to Alcohol Problems – a major health policy project funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts to change the way that America provides care for people with alcohol problems. Within five years, Ensuring Solutions:

Helped businesses nationwide to demand better alcohol-related services from their health plans, increasing the identification of patients with alcohol problems by more than 15 percent in one year, thus ensuring treatment for tens of thousands of additional patients.

Convinced the American Medical Association and the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services to create new billing codes that encourage primary care physicians to identify and treat people with substance use disorders.

Developed new research-based standards for the identification and treatment of substance use disorders. These standards were endorsed by the National Quality Forum in 2007.

Created an online technical assistance program to help repeal insurance laws that discourage emergency room doctors from identifying patients with alcohol-related problems. Since 2002, this resource has helped to repeal laws in 10 states and the District of Columbia.

Inaugural Meeting of Advisory Board

The newly formed advisory board for the Center met on June 5, 2008 and was welcomed by Steven Knapp, President of The George Washington University. Members of the board are:

James Abernathy, Chairman and CEO, Abernathy MacGregor Group, Inc.
Tom Brady, MD, Chief Medical Officer, CRC Health Groups, Inc.
David Broecker, CEO, Alkermes
Jonathan Diesenhaus, Partner, Hogan & Hartson
Representative Patrick Kennedy, Rhode Island, 1^st District
David C. Lewis, MD, Director, Physician Leadership on National Drug Policy
Louise Murphy, President, Aetna Behavioral Health
Catherine Rush, Vice Chair, Johnson Institute
Mike Sime, CEO, Creative Carton
Paul Schyve, Vice President, Joint Commission for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations

About The George Washington University Medical Center

The George Washington University Medical Center is an internationally recognized interdisciplinary academic health center that has consistently provided high-quality medical care in the Washington, DC metropolitan area for 176 years. The Medical Center comprises the School of Medicine and Health Sciences, the 11^th oldest medical school in the country; the School of Public Health and Health Services, the only such school in the nation’s capital; GW Hospital, jointly owned and operated by a partnership between The George Washington University and a subsidiary of Universal Health Services, Inc.; and the GW Medical Faculty Associates, an independent faculty practice plan. For more information on GWUMC, visit www.gwumc.edu.

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