Integrated Care: The Evolving Role of Psychiatry in the Era of Health Care Reform

The rapidly changing health care environment demands integrated, accountable, and collaborative care. Psychiatrists must decide whether to seek new competencies—such as enhancing their primary care skills, learning to practice population-based medicine, using data to drive care, and honing their leadership skill—or cede ground to their general medical colleagues. This month’s Integrated Care column urges psychiatrists to stake out a leadership role in the development of new models of integrated care.

Health care reform offers psychiatrists, who are trained in both general medical and behavioral health care, many opportunities to assume leadership roles on collaborative care teams and improve patient outcomes. This column describes such opportunities in primary care and public mental health settings and outlines new competencies, such as enhanced primary care skills, that will allow psychiatrists to expand their scope of practice in new models of care in the era of reform. These changes will require training, and the author calls on leaders of the American Psychiatric Association to help psychiatrists obtain new skills and undertake new roles.