Doctors working in primary care often encounter patients with mental health and addiction (MHA) needs. Unfortunately, doctors usually have few resources to address these needs. This forces them to refer patients to external services with long wait lists, which has led to many MHA problems going unaddressed.
Researchers in Hamilton, however, recently took a look at a successful effort to integrate MHA services into primary care settings. Their findings can help inform the efforts of managers, service providers, and systems planners who are trying to improve MHA outcomes.
EENet has developed a Research Snapshot of the article, “Integrating mental health services within primary care settings,” by Nick Kates and others. It appeared in the Journal of Ambulatory Care Management, vol. 34, no. 2 (2011): 175-82. The Snapshot is available at www.ehealthontario.ca.
Research Snapshots are brief, clear language summaries of research articles, presented in a user-friendly format. To read EENet’s clear language summary of this article and others, visit the EENet website at www.ehealthontario.ca.