Cultural competency can help improve health equity
When we think of a visit to the doctor or a mental health specialist, a common experience emerges.
In the case of the doctor, questions are asked, knees are tapped, hearts are listened to, and height and weight are measured. With a mental health clinician, questions are asked, questions are answered, and a meaningful conversation ensues.
Health equity: When equality is not good enough
When discussing public health, we often hear the terms “health equity”, “health equality” and “health inequality”, but what do they really mean?
What are the subtle variances in meaning, and why is it important to understand these differences?
Beacon expands into Florida as a Project ECHO hub
Beacon Health Options has an important new partnership in Florida: Beacon is serving as a Project ECHO hub to train practitioners on medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for treating opioid use disorder (OUD).
With a live hub in New York and one successfully completed in Connecticut, Beacon is the first managed behavioral health organization to become an official partner of Project ECHO.
Enhance behavioral health crisis systems to improve health, reduce costs
People with mental health and substance use disorder challenges are using emergency department (ED) services more frequently than in prior years.
From 2006 to 2013, there has been a 52 percent increase in ED utilization by people with serious mental illness (SMI).
A pandemic and trauma: Helping those who are helping others
The story of the New York City ER doctor who died by suicide has highlighted the stress frontline healthcare workers are experiencing during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr.Lorna Breen did not have a history of mental illness, according to her father, but after caring for patients and contracting the disease herself only to return to caring for patients, it all became too much.
Mental health and wellbeing: Knowing when to help a loved one
The fear of the unknown. It’s a phrase we’ve all used, but during today’s COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a term that has adopted real meaning as none of us can be sure what the future holds.
We are living a true day-by-day existence, which runs counter to the human instinct to anticipate and plan.
COVID-19 stress: It’s Ok to ask for help
COVID-19 will forever be remembered for quarantining, working from home and generally isolating from the world.
Today, many of us sit in our homes, at our computers, with children to be educated, pets to be soothed and chaos to be tolerated.
Let’s talk about how we feel
For decades, mental health has been a taboo topic.
We can talk about a family member’s cancer, for example, but not about the depression that keeps a loved one from going to work or the anxiety that makes it difficult for that person to leave the house.
COVID-19 isolation: You’re not alone
For most people, the term “social distance” is contradictory to the very nature of who we are: social animals whose very existence relies on interacting with others, whether through families, workplaces, neighborhoods, nations and beyond.
So when we’ve been asked to “social distance” due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us may feel alone – physically, psychologically, and of course, socially.
COVID-19 and housing for people experiencing homelessness: Today’s innovations, tomorrow’s solutions
To meet the needs of individuals experiencing homelessness as well as to help curtail COVID-19’s trajectory, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that those individuals with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 cases live in housing that isolates them from others.
It’s a common-sense recommendation as the number one call to action to control this pandemic is social distancing – living and working apart from one another as much as possible.