Practice Type: Primary Care

Behavioral Health Support Specialist (BHSS)

Our goals for this project include (1) Design competency framework and learning objectives that define the role and scope of practice for a BHSS; (2) Scale the role for Washington state by creating processes for integrating the BHSS Clinical Training Program into existing four-year degree programs in the behavioral healthcare field; (3) Partner with Washington state higher education institutions to adopt the BHSS Clinical Training Program; (4) Develop curricular resources to share with Washington State colleges and universities including an Educator’s Guide; (5) Collaborate with government agencies, employers, and policy groups to implement legislation establishing a BHSS credential in Washington state.

For information, please contact:
Bill O’Connell, Ed.D.
Director, Clinical Training Program

Savannah Tidwell, BS
tidwell1@uw.edu
Program Manager, Clinical Training Program

Harnessing the ECHO Model to help Washingtonians with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of disability in Washington state and throughout the US. TBI increases the risk and complexity of multiple behavioral health conditions including post traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, irritability, anger/aggression, substance misuse and cognitive impairment. In addition, TBI impairs a person’s ability to manage their health care and increases the risk of unemployment, long-term functional impairment, and caregiver burnout. Successful TBI recovery can depend in large part on access to and engagement in behavioral health treatment. Unfortunately, TBI-focused community resources are scarce and fragmented. Treatment of post-TBI symptoms often falls to community providers who have little support and are under-prepared to manage these complexities. This burden disproportionally affects rural providers who have little access to specialist care at academic centers.

The purpose of this project is to create and assess the use of the ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) model to provide education and support by experienced TBI experts to community providers who treat persons with TBI. The ECHO model uses both a virtual educational lecture series and patient case discussion to improve provider preparedness to treat patients and improve patient outcomes. We will launch a monthly to bi-monthly program that will train providers from a variety of disciplines and settings in identification and evidence-based behavioral health treatments, web technologies and mobile technologies, and provide detailed case consultation. We will assess the success, reach and impact of our TBI ECHO by collecting and comparing attendee experiences, clinical information and patient outcomes.

This project received two years of additional funding from the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services.

A dyadic approach to perinatal depression treatment in primary care

Perinatal depression affects 10-20% of pregnant and postpartum individuals, impairing parenting self-efficacy and mother-infant interactions and contributing to negative maternal-child outcomes. This research will test comprehensive perinatal depression treatment, Maternal Infant and Dyadic Care (MInD), which includes a brief version of the Promoting First Relationships parenting intervention implemented within perinatal collaborative care, against perinatal collaborative care (CC) only. The aims of this study are to (1) compare the effects of MInD vs. usual perinatal CC on depression, (2) explore associations between parenting self-efficacy, dyadic interaction, and depression to inform a mediational hypothesis, and (3) examine and compare care utilization, trial feasibility, and perceived match of treatment to patient need. 

Understanding practical alcohol measures in primary care to prepare for measurement-based care

Standardized measurements of unhealthy drinking and alcohol use disorder symptoms are integral to addressing alcohol problems. However, surprisingly little is known about how measures of alcohol consumption and alcohol use disorder symptoms function when they are used in real-world routine care settings and documented in electronic health records (EHRs).

We propose to leverage EHRs to understand how measures of alcohol consumption and DSM-5 alcohol use disorder symptoms function in the context of real-world routine care, including by understanding how these measures function psychometrically overall and across demographic groups (age, sex, race, and ethnicity) and how they are associated with subsequent health outcomes obtained from EHRs.

Improving opioid use disorder treatment using contingency management via mHealth

Deaths related to the opioid overdose epidemic remain at an all-time high across the country despite significant efforts to reduce them. There is a pressing need to support medication treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD) to help people stay in treatment and reduce the risk of overdose death and other serious health consequences of untreated addiction. Smartphone-based apps can facilitate the delivery of an evidence-based approach called contingency management that incentivizes use of medications for OUD, reduces use of non-prescribed opioids and improves retention in OUD treatment.

This study will leverage a commercially available smartphone app that can bring this much-needed behavioral support to patients receiving OUD treatment in a primary care clinic and in a specialty OUD treatment clinic. The approach offers a potentially non-labor intensive, cost-effective and highly scalable means of delivering OUD care.

Intervention to increase naloxone engagement and distribution in community pharmacies

This multi-site study will test the efficacy of an intervention to train and equip pharmacists to provide naloxone, an overdose antidote, to patients using prescribed and illicit opioids, to improve opioid safety and prevent opioid-involved adverse events. The study will carry out a stepped-wedge, cluster randomized trial implemented over five waves, within two chain community pharmacies across four states with varying pharmacy-based naloxone distribution laws: Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

Our specific study aims are to: 1) integrate two successful demonstration research projects into one cohesive educational program (MOON+), 2) evaluate the effectiveness of MOON + on naloxone-related outcomes, and 3) use mixed methods to further explore the impact and implementation of MOON+ and associated factors (e.g., state policy, store policy, region).