The need for child mental health services exceeds the availability of trained providers in The United States. Recent changes in health care policy have improved insurance coverage for mental services, further increasing the number of children and adolescents seeking mental health treatment. With the national shift towards population medicine, it will be more imperative to integrate psychological screening and evidenced based mental health treatments into primary care and to develop efficient models of service delivery in the medical setting.
In response to these national trends and the local shortage of qualified pediatric mental health professionals, The Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at The Penn State Milton S. Hershey …show more content…
Presently, we provide 3 hours of psychiatry time per week and are considering adding direct provision of brief psychosocial services in general pediatrics. The specialty pediatrics program has a similar design except that it provides psychosocial services using a brief CBT model with the primary target being internalizing symptoms and challenges coping with chronic medical disease. All treatment occurs in the multi-specialty pediatric clinic. Provision of psychiatry consults was not deemed feasible as most psychotropics for these patients are prescribed by generalists outside of the HMC system and not the HMC specialists. Expedited referrals to our child psychiatry clinic are available for program participants. This program was expanded by adding a rapid screening service led by one of our departmental …show more content…
To address there we completed an anonymous survey of providers in the General Pediatrics Clinic (response rate 66.6%). We found that 81.8 % referred to the Consultation clinic with 81.9 % finding the referral process easy , very easy or acceptable , 63.6 % found the wait time shorter or what they expected. Over 81% were satisfied or very satisfied with the quality of the written
In response to these national trends and the local shortage of qualified pediatric mental health professionals, The Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at The Penn State Milton S. Hershey …show more content…
Presently, we provide 3 hours of psychiatry time per week and are considering adding direct provision of brief psychosocial services in general pediatrics. The specialty pediatrics program has a similar design except that it provides psychosocial services using a brief CBT model with the primary target being internalizing symptoms and challenges coping with chronic medical disease. All treatment occurs in the multi-specialty pediatric clinic. Provision of psychiatry consults was not deemed feasible as most psychotropics for these patients are prescribed by generalists outside of the HMC system and not the HMC specialists. Expedited referrals to our child psychiatry clinic are available for program participants. This program was expanded by adding a rapid screening service led by one of our departmental …show more content…
To address there we completed an anonymous survey of providers in the General Pediatrics Clinic (response rate 66.6%). We found that 81.8 % referred to the Consultation clinic with 81.9 % finding the referral process easy , very easy or acceptable , 63.6 % found the wait time shorter or what they expected. Over 81% were satisfied or very satisfied with the quality of the written