Professors Jim Fauth (Clinical Psychology), George Tremblay (Clinical Psychology), and Amy Blanchard (Marriage and Family Therapy) of the Center for Research on Psychological Practice (CROPP) have received $125K from New Hampshire’s Endowment for Health to fund the pilot phase of an Integrated Care Evaluation (ICE) project. A portion of this funding will support three doctoral research assistantships.
This project moves beyond the randomized clinical trial method of research to explore and improve integrated care – the systematic provision of mental, behavioral, and substance abuse treatment in primary medical care settings – as financially self-sustained in four clinics serving rural and/or underserved populations.
The project is designed to:
1) enhance understanding of the allocation, utilization, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of integrated primary care as delivered in naturalistic, underserved settings;
2) demonstrate the effectiveness of participatory practice-based research – as distinct from a dissemination model based on randomized clinical trials – for improving health care delivery systems; and
3) advance integrated health care policy in New Hampshire and beyond.
Professors Fauth, Tremblay,and Blanchard believe this project is a first of its kind. Project researchers will evaluate integrated care as practiced in naturalistic settings; feed the resulting data back into stakeholder-driven, site-specific, quality improvement initiatives; and engage third party payers, such as Medicaid, in designing summative evaluation to inform health care policy.
