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Integrated Health Care • Glossary of Terms

Basic model – A version of the collaborative care model that includes just its essential elements, namely a valid mental health assessment tool, a clinical care manager, a patient registry, and psychiatric consultation

Clinical care manager – A professional or paraprofessional who is responsible for following patients with identified mental health needs in the primary care setting and monitoring their response to treatment

Collaborative care – An integrated health care model in which physical health and mental health providers partner to manage the treatment of mild to moderate mental health disorders in the primary care setting.

Collocation – An integrated health care approach in which both physical and mental health providers are located in the same building or on the same premises to increase access to those services and to reduce the stigma of seeking mental health treatment

Cultural competence -- The integration and transformation of knowledge, information, and data about individuals and groups of people into specific clinical standards, skills, service approaches, techniques, and marketing programs that match the individual’s culture and increase the quality and appropriateness of health care and outcomes

Enhanced model – A version of the collaborative care model that include its essential elements (i.e., a valid mental health assessment tool, a clinical care manager, a patient registry, and psychiatric consultation) plus an evidence-based psychotherapy or behavior management protocol

Evidence-based treatments – Mental health treatments that have demonstrated positive outcomes in multiple research studies

Integrated health care – The systematic coordination of mental and physical health care to increase to those services, to improve the quality of services, and to reduce the stigma of seeking mental health treatment

Memorandum of Agreement – A written agreement between two or more organizations, detailing their commitment to work together on a project and their respective responsibilities in the collaboration

Medication algorithm – Guidelines for the systematic use of medications to treatment psychiatric disorders

Mental health assessment tool – A reliable and valid instrument that allows the clinician to make a mental health diagnosis and to track the patient’s symptom severity over time

Paraprofessional – A bachelor’s level staff person in a health care setting (e.g., licensed practical nurse) who receives clinical training to provide basic services, such as care manager responsibilities

Patient registry – A database used to track patients with identified mental health needs, including their diagnoses and scores on a mental health assessment tool, as well as each treatment contact and attempted contact.

Process evaluation – An approach to evaluation that focuses on how a program was implemented and how it operates

Psychiatrist – In the collaborative care model, the professional who supervises the clinical care manager and provides recommendations to the primary care physician on how to work with patients not responding to treatment

Relapse prevention – A strategy for reducing the likelihood of a psychiatric disorder’s recurrence that includes the identification of the patient’s triggers and warning signals and the development of a plan for avoiding triggers and seeking help when warning signals arise

Screening instrument – A clinical measure that is used to detect mental health problems at a gross level, identifying patients in need of a more intensive assessment to make a diagnosis

Standard of care -- The level of treatment that is recognized as acceptable and appropriate by prudent similar health care providers

Televideo links – The means by which audiovisual technology is used to facilitate the provision of clinical services at a distance, as in telepsychiatry

Treatment adherence – The extent to which patients participate in treatment as prescribed

Treatment fidelity – Adherence to an intervention’s standards of practice

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