P3.C059: From Collaboration to Transformation: The Power of Interprofessional Education in Pediatric Primary Care Mental Health Integration

Background: Our youth are regularly without adequate access to trained mental health clinicians (MHCs). Pediatricians are frequently without the necessary education and resources. Integrating MHCs into the medical home contributes on-site support, education, and training. The interprofessional team educates and learns from each other how to best treat the whole child. Therefore, education, increasing comfort level, and ensuring interprofessional support with providing mental health treatment in the pediatric primary care setting is essential. To help address the youth mental health crisis, there is emerging interest in supporting and educating pediatricians on treatment, both in the workforce as well as through new training mandates.

Methods: This session will show the work Rady Children’s Hospital – San Diego has done to increase mental health education and awareness, specifically for providers, as well as the successes accomplished, so others can learn, adapt, and develop appropriate programs at their home institutions. Initiatives include partnering with an external company, The REACH Institute, to educate clinicians on mental health detection and intervention, training psychiatry fellows and pre-doctoral psychology interns, holding registry conferences, hosting integrated health topic series, and providing pediatric resident rotations.

Results: We have seen positive results, including formal feedback and surveys from our trainees, and our pediatric partners, on the benefits of integrated care and the variety of educational experiences that our program offers. We have also found a 62% reduction in depression and a 44% reduction in anxiety symptoms in our children being seen by our inter-professional team.

Conclusion: There has been a significant increase in need for youth mental health services at Rady Children’s Hospital – San Diego. The Primary Care Mental Health Integration (PCMHI) program determined that early intervention, early identification and treating the whole child in the medical home was the key. This involved building a new clinical culture, which is overarchingly based on educating and supporting pediatricians and mental health clinicians.