What is the recipe for PCBH? Proposed resources, processes, and expected outcomes.

Abstract

What is the Primary Care Behavioral Health (PCBH) model of service delivery? Clinician innovators, administrators, and researchers have continued to refine the answer to this question. In the same way a recipe for mac n cheese provides the resources needed (i.e., ingredients), processes to make the dish, and expected outcomes (e.g., number of servings), a comprehensive operational definition for PCBH is needed to help improve the rigor of research being conducted. This recipe can also help clinicians/administrators identify a basic recipe for PCBH that standardizes the necessary components and amounts to achieve the expected outcomes. In this editorial, we provide a comprehensive operational recipe for PCBH based on current research. We are calling people to assist us by (a) utilizing the recipe to help improve the reporting and rigor of PCBH research and (b) applying the proposed operational definitions and targets within the recipe to help us refine and validate them.

Assessing counseling student self-reported competencies in primary care behavioral health.

“…They reported improved competencies in both interventions and team-based BHC role. These results support training to promote fidelity to PCBH practice (Funderburk et al, 2021; Kearney et al, 2020; Serrano et al, 2017) using competency-focused training to promote fidelity to PCBH practice. It appears the combination of didactic courses and opportunities for clinical application in primary care settings contributed to the reported increases in competence.…”

Integrated primary care psychology training programs: Challenges and strategies.

“…Recognizing education and training need to considerably move up the ladder of priorities to achieve sustainable integrated care in the next generation, both new and established programs would need to proactively and systematically demonstrate the value of interprofessional training between psychology and primary care. Given the paucity of validated measurements of program outcomes and high variation of program implementation in the field of integrated primary care (Funderburk, Polaha, et al, 2021; Stephens et al, 2020), training programs would need to innovate mechanisms that measure, track, and monitor their program data to reflect the various value propositions (patient care, provider performance and wellbeing, organizational objectives, cost effectiveness and revenue) supporting integrated primary care training. Also, true and effective integrated primary care practice requires competencies and skills of all primary care teams and clinic staff within the organization (Hall et al, 2015); therefore, psychology training programs are recommended to form cross-discipline partnerships and build organization-wide tracking tools for integration outcomes.…”

Interprofessional microteaching: An innovation to strengthen the behavioral health competencies of the primary care workforce.

“…All BHCs practice in a way that is consistent with the PCBH model (Reiter et al, 2018); however, four out of five clinics were recently established or under new direction during the time of data collection. Using Funderburk et al’s (2021) model for gauging fidelity to PCBH, these five clinics exhibit several of the system-level resources and provider-level processes that are representative of “strong” components of PCBH: (a) BHCs are members of the primary care team and participate in a majority of team activities (e.g., huddles); (b) BHCs see patients in the same exam rooms as PCPs; (c) BHCs chart in the same electronic medical record as PCPs and providers can see each other’s notes without “breaking the glass”; (d) BHCs are accessible (e.g., average visit is 35 min, 89.2% of patients seen by BHCs during this period had fewer than five behavioral health visits in their episode of care); and (e) BHCs offer timely access to behavioral health services (e.g., 56.2% of behavioral health visits during this pilot period were initiated via same-day warm handoffs).…”