Integrated care is receiving a lot of attention from clinicians, administrators, policy makers, and researchers. Given the current healthcare crises in the United States, where costs, quality, and access to care are of particular concern, many are looking for new and better ways of delivering behavioral health services. Integrating behavioral health into primary care medical settings has been shown to: 1) produce healthier patients; 2) produce medical savings; 3) produce higher patient satisfaction; 4) leverage the primary care physician's time so that they can be more productive; and 5) increase physician satisfaction. For these reasons this is an emerging paradigm with a lot of interest and momentum. For example, the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health has recently endorsed redesigning the mental health system so that much of this is integrated into primary care medicine.
Yet there are few resources to assist all those that are interested in moving toward integrated care. This has been a major impediment to more widespread adoption of integrated care. The two co-editors of this proposed volume have produced some of the key books in this area: Dr. James (along with co-editor Ray Folen) has recently produced The Primary Care Consultant which is a good resource that helps define the unfortunately usually misunderstood and neglected consultation liaison function of the integrated care behavioral provider. Dr. O'Donohue has co-written a book A Primer of Integrative Behavioral Care (Prometheus Press, in press) that is designed to serve as a general introduction to integrated case; as well as co-edited some more specific titles on medical cost offset, integrated care and substance abuse, and Behavioral Integrative Care (2005, Brunner Routledge). Please see our enclosed vitas for more information.
What these books fail to do is to provide very concrete practice guidelines and other associated practical tools for the practicing integrative care behavioral health professional. This book is designed to fill this important gap. All chapters will be designed to provide useful materials to understand this quite different mode of practice. None of the chapters will be academically oriented, although all information will be evidenced based. As such it will reach a wide audience and have no direct competitors. We believe because of the editors' profile in this area, the excellent reputations of the chapter authors, and the practicality of this book it will sell very well.
About the Author: Larry James, Ph.D, ABPP, is Chair of the Department of Psychology at Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu. He holds adjunct appointments at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences School of Medicine, Howard University Hospital, University of West Florida, American School of Professional Psychology, University of Hawaii, and Hawaii Pacific University. He is President-elect of the American Board of Health Psychology; he is on the Board of Trustees of the American Board of Professional Psychology as well as on the Board of Directors of Division 38 (Health Psychology) of the American Psychological Association; and he is a member of the Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security. He is an Associate Editor on the Journal of Military Psychology (Division 19 of the American Psychological Association) and has received numerous professional, military, and athletic honors.
William T. O'Donohue, PhD is Professor of the Department of Psychology and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Nevada at Reno. From 1999 through 2005 he was Nicholas Cummings Professor of Organized Behavioral Healthcare Delivery at the same institution. In addition, he is Director of the Victoms of Crimes Treatment Center and the Sexual Assault Prevention and Counseling Services at University of Nevada, Reno. He is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy and since 1999 has served on the Advisory Board of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies. His areas of specialization are mental health service delivery, forensic psychology, human sexuality (treatment of victims and offenders), management and administration, behavior therapy, and philosophy of psychology.
