Our Work

The CIMH engages in Community-based Participatory Research (CBPR) to guide research design and implementation. We implement and evaluate different models for integrating mental health care into a variety of settings, including primary care, HIV, maternal health, and schools, that can serve as more accessible gateways to mental health care. We develop and evaluate innovations based on research and community, evidence, and best practices in the field. Our work is guided by implementation science and is evidence based in related cross-disciplinary fields to create scientifically informed conceptual frameworks and methods.

Publications

New York City Mental Health Workforce I: Proceedings

Leading stakeholders in mental health convening to focus on diversifying the workforce to match the communities it will serve, standardizing and collecting workforce data, creating strategies to assist mental health workers in new collaborative models, and facilitating workforce growth.

Press Releases

New academic/service partnership to help support New York City Medicaid recipients: CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy’s Center for Innovation in Mental Health joins with Coordinated Behavioral Care to enhance services

NEW YORK – [December 11, 2018]—The CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy Center for Innovation in Mental Health (CIMH), a collaboration with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), has partnered with Coordinated Behavioral Care (CBC), a New York City not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of care for Medicaid beneficiaries with serious mental illness, chronic health conditions, and/or substance use disorders, to evaluate programs across the CBC Network, conduct quality improvement initiatives, and establish innovative best practices.

The CBC Network is comprised of more than 50 community-based behavioral health organizations offering a comprehensive and integrated delivery system of mental, substance use, medical, and social determinants of health services that impact close to 100,000 New York City Medicaid recipients.

The natural alignment between CIMH’s specific expertise and CBC’s rising need to identify and scale innovative best practices across a growing network, makes this a unique and exciting partnership that will continue to enhance direct services.

“The CIMH team is excited to partner with CBC,” said CIMH director Dr. Virna Little. “It’s a great opportunity to show the impact that behavioral health networks can have on the populations and organizations they serve.”

“The community-based behavioral health service providers that CBC represents, whether through our Health Home and/or Independent Practice Association (IPA), are at the forefront of innovative program design and delivery,” said Dr. Jorge Petit, CBC’s President and CEO. “This partnership will allow us to shine a light on the innovative practices, programs and services that exist within the CBC Network, and with the help of CIMH, we will be able to offer a more formal evaluation structure that will allow these efforts to be scaled to impact practice delivery, influence policy, and inform needed alternative payment initiatives and VBP.”

Partnerships like that of CBC and CIMH enhance the ability of both organizations to impact the quality and value of care and realize better outcomes for the residents of New York City. Through the development of a CBC Network Practice-Based Hub with the support and guidance of CIMH, the NYC behavioral health sector will benefit from the dissemination of these Practice-Based Approaches (PBAs). PBAs are considered innovative or distinctive community-based interventions, programs or services. They are designed to address clients’ needs and focus on effectiveness and improving individuals’ health outcomes.

About Coordinated Behavioral Care (CBC)

CBC is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of care for New Yorkers with serious mental illness, chronic health conditions and/or substance use disorders. CBC brings together over fifty community-based health and human services organizations which provide access to quality

treatment, housing, employment and other needed services. CBC operates a Health Home that provides care coordination services to tens of thousands of New Yorkers of all ages, with 50+ community-based care management agencies located in all five boroughs. CBC also operates an Independent Practice Association (IPA) including a citywide network of New York State-licensed primary care, mental health and substance use treatment services, thousands of units of supportive housing, primary medical, recovery and support services, and assistance with concrete needs such as food, employment and housing. Among CBC’s innovations is the Pathway Home program, offering Care Transition services during the transition to the community following discharge from a psychiatric admission.

About CIMH

The Center for Innovation in Mental Health (CIMH) as the academic and evaluation arm of the NYC Department of Health Innovation Lab, provides coordination between the NYC Department of Health and other researchers, investigators, and academic institutions; in addition, it provides direct research and evaluation services to assist the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene on all aspects of mental health quality improvement, technical assistance, evaluation, best practices dissemination, and data development, analysis, and management. CIMH is a part of the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Public Health, and hosts training activities for all CUNY students and NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) including a Mental Health Methods Series, the Interdisciplinary Academy for Professional Development in Mental Health, and quality improvement initiatives to improve clinicians’ skills in process improvement.

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