SSM Health behavioral health leader Michelle Schafer shared some of the health system’s innovative ideas for improving community mental health outcomes at a policy briefing last week on Capitol Hill.
The briefing, "Communities in Crisis: How Hospitals are Addressing Mental and Behavioral Health Challenges in their Communities," was hosted by Vizient Inc. at the Rayburn House Office Building.
Schafer focused on the need to work together across the country in non-traditional ways and stressed how imperative it is to make the government’s telehealth waiver permanent.
“The needs of our communities are outpacing our abilities when using conventional models of care,” said Schafer, Regional Vice President and System Clinical Program Chair of Behavioral Health at SSM Health.
“We have to be transformational and redefine prevention to not simply be education,” she said. “We need to screen and identify experiences and disease states in our children so that we can address and cure them now, preventing progression into adulthood.”
The Behavioral Health Urgent Care Center, Long Acting Injectables Clinic, and WISH (Woman and Infant Substance Help) Center, designed to assist pregnant women dealing with addiction, are some of SSM Health’s innovative behavioral health programs.
Other panelists at the briefing included Heather Chung of Houston Methodist and Susan Swick of Montage Health.
Learn more about behavioral health at SSM Health, including the availability of telehealth services.
