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Strategic Priorities for Mental/Brain Health in Texas

This preview highlights the key strategic priorities for improving mental and brain health in the state of Texas, including state policy, local health systems, university leadership capacity, funding best practices, public awareness, and scaling population-specific best practices.

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Strategic Priorities for Mental/Brain Health in Texas

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  1. Retreat Preview: Reflecting on Current Strategic Priorities Andy Keller, PhD – February 22, 2018

  2. MMHPI Vision and Mission Goal for the Retreat: Understanding what this means well enough to be able to talk about it comfortably with others

  3. Top Strategic Priority: State Policy • 1. Improve State Level Policy: Provide the Texas Legislature, Executive Branch agencies, and the Judiciary with the information they need regarding mental/brain health needs and best practices to help them develop and implement effective public policy.What Does This Mean? State government regulations and payments for health care have a big influence on what health care is delivered and how. Texas officials need the best information available when they make decisions, so Texas health systems – public and private – have the right incentives and accountability to deliver the most efficient and effective care possible.

  4. Other Top Priority: Local Health Systems • 2. Develop Local Behavioral Health Systems: Help Texas communities develop locally-driven, accountable, and collaborative local planning efforts that systemically improve the capacity of delivery systems to meet the behavioral health needs of the entire local population.What Does This Mean? We put policy into practice, and inform our policy recommendations by what is happening in the real world. Optimal policy change occurs when top down decisions meet bottom up solutions midway. State policy can either present barriers and funds for the wrong thing or the right thing; if it provides them for the right thing, positive change happens.

  5. The Other Four Strategic Priorities • 3. Improve University Leadership Capacity for Mental and Brain Health: Help Texas become a national and global leader in brain health and the integrated treatment of mental/brain illness by promoting systemic changes in medical education and clinical training, medical research, and translation of research findings into practice to benefit the public.What Does This Mean? Texas needs to harness its academic medical centers to treat mental illness, just like we already have for cancer. When they have serious health concerns, Texans turn to the leading institutions in their communities, which are often university based or linked. University research helps find better treatments and cures, and it has also helped Texas build both our world class health systems and our economy. And only our institutions of higher learning can help us solve our health workforce challenges over the long term.

  6. The Other Four Strategic Priorities • 4. Help Funders of Care Implement Financing Best Practices: Help payers (governments, employers, insurers) and other funders (philanthropists, foundations) identify, develop, and employ best practices when they finance behavioral health in order to expand access to effective and efficient care for brain illnesses, comparable to care for other illnesses.What Does This Mean? Employers and government agencies purchase most of the health care in Texas, so they drive the design of care. Helping these purchasers understand the value of effective mental health care is key, particularly how it can improve health – and health outcomes – beyond just the brain. Reattaching the brain to the body is essential if we are going to bend the cost curves threatening both employer and government agency bottom lines.

  7. The Other Four Strategic Priorities • 5. Change Public Awareness to Improve Access to Effective Care: Increase public awareness of mental and brain diseases and their effective treatment, so that Texans talk more openly about mental and brain health and help each other access effective care.What Does This Mean? Two-thirds of people never seek care, most because they do not know that effective help is available and recovery and remission a likely outcome. Nine in ten Texans still feel that mental health is harder to talk about than other health concerns, so that also gets in the way. The first step to getting help is to realize that it’s okay to say that you need help to your doctor, a loved one, or a trusted helper. We all need to be ready to help the people we care about get the help they need.

  8. The Other Four Strategic Priorities • 6. Identify, Share, and Promote Strategies to Take Population Best Practices to Scale for: Texas Children, Texas Veterans, Smart Justice, and Other Critical Needs Across the Life Span. • What Does This Mean? We can only help Texans access effective and efficient mental health care if we know which types of care work best and for who and for what cost. While research has not yet found the best treatments for every mental health need, they have found that some treatments work better for some people than for others and that some are more cost effective than others. We need to help the Texans who provide and pay for mental health care know more about the care options that work best for the people they serve.

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