Collaborative Mental Health Care in Canada: Challenges, Opportunities and New Directions.

The second is the building of stronger partnerships between all mental health and addictions services and their primary care colleagues, to both improve access to care and support and assist primary care to deliver effective mental health care. The Impact and Benefits of Collaborative Care The preponderance of research evidence for CMHC is based on studies of the model developed by Katon and colleagues over the past 25 years.[13],[29] This emphasizes: (a) team-based care, (b) measurement-based care and treatment-to-target, (c) evidence-informed treatment algorithms, and (d) population-oriented care using patient registries and proactive outreach. The first sees family physicians and other primary care professionals playing a growing role in delivering mental health care, even without the addition of new resources, by increasing the skills and capacity of the primary care sector to deliver "primary mental health care", supported by the local mental health system. Integration of Physical Health Care into Mental Health Settings In many parts of Canada, individuals living with a mental health and addiction problem, particularly those with severe and persistent mental illnesses, face difficulties in accessing regular, comprehensive, and continuing care. The third element is the integration of mental health-care providers within primary care settings to improve access to high-quality mental health and addiction assessment and treatment and enhance the patient experience. [Extracted from the article]