|
Section Two: Services for People with
Chronic Conditions
The Program on Chronic Mental Illness
By Howard
H. Goldman
Editors'
Introduction
| Individuals with chronic mental illness
face enormous challenges getting the care they need.
Not only do they have to cope with their illness,
but they and their families must also try to arrange
services from two complex and often unreceptive systems
of care: the medical system and the social service
system. Following the movement of patients from state
mental hospitals to community settings, the problems
faced by people with chronic mental illness became
more visible to the American public.
In 1987 and 1988, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
launched three national programs to improve services
for people with chronic mental illness. Two of them--the
Mental Health Services Program for Youth, which was
examined by Leonard Saxe and Theodore Cross in last
year's Anthology, and the Program on Chronic Mental
Illness, which is discussed in this chapter--attempted
to better coordinate mental health care services.
The third program, the Mental Health Services Development
Program, did not focus on improving systems of care
but, rather, on improving the quality of clinical
and social services. |
 |
Howard Goldman,
a professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland,
directed a large evaluation of the Program on Chronic
Mental Illness. In this chapter, he reviews the successes
and the failures of the program. First, however, he
places the program within the context of the broad
campaigns to reform the treatment of mentally ill
individuals and, more narrowly, within the context
of the Foundation's efforts in this field.
Often, evaluators are more negative about a program
than the Foundation's staff or the national program
office, who naturally feel pride and ownership of
a program. In this case, the opposite occurred: Goldman
and his team interpreted the results more positively
than many of those involved in designing and running
the program. He argues that those who were disappointed
with the findings had unreasonable expectations or
focused on the wrong outcomes. Perhaps more important,
he highlights the limitations of an approach to treating
chronic mental illness that concentrates on improving
systems of delivering services and ignores the quality
of those services. The lessons from the Foundation-funded
mental health programs about the importance of improving
both clinical services and systems of care were applied
in later mental health research and services programs
financed by the federal government. |
 |
|
|
Chapter 6
Chronic mental illness
has been a social welfare policy issue in the United States
for almost two centuries. Characterized by a series of reform
movements, mental health policy has been focused on a variety
of organizational solutions to the problems of individuals
with severe mental illness.
Policy analysts and historians have described
four cycles of reform. The first cycle, during the early nineteenth
century, championed "moral treatment" in asylums; the second,
almost a century later, advanced scientific "mental hygiene,"
to be practiced in psychopathic hospitals and clinics. The
first two reform cycles expanded a variety of public and private
institutions for treating people with mental illness. Before
World War II, most services were delivered in large state
and county asylums, and in a smaller number of private hospitals
and clinics.
After World War II, a third cycle of reform,
financed largely by the federal government and state mental
health authorities, shifted the focus to community-based care
in private offices and community mental health centers. Outpatient
services expanded greatly during this period, employing new
treatments, including antipsychotic and antidepressant medications.
These changes ushered in the era of deinstitutionalization,
in which the resident populations of state and county mental
hospitals were reduced dramatically--from a high of about
560,000 in 1955 to well below 100,000 by the 1990s. Inpatient
and long-term residential services in other settings, especially
general hospitals and nursing homes, substituted for much
of this dramatic decline. Mental health care policies and
resources associated with deinstitutionalization, however,
were not accompanied by commensurate changes in social welfare
policies and resources--in income support and housing subsidies,
for example--to accommodate the shift to community care. Individuals
with mental illness, particularly those with severe and chronic
mental disorders such as schizophrenia and manic-depressive
illness, were not as well integrated into their communities
as the reformers had expected.
Each of these reform movements proposed
a new way of treating mental illness in a new setting. Each
theorized that early intervention in acute cases would prevent
the problems posed by chronic mental illness. For 150 years,
pursuing these strategies resulted in the continuing neglect
of people with severe mental illness.
Then, in the 1970s,
a fourth cycle of reform proposed a program of community support
to address the problems of chronic mental illness. Instead
of placing continued hope in early intervention, the community
support movement recharacterized the problem of chronic mental
illness in social welfare as well as psychiatric terms. This
approach broadened the scope of policy to include issues of
employment, income support, transportation, and housing. In
doing so, the movement revealed the fragmentation of the system
of services needed by those with chronic mental illness. Policy
makers asked, Who is responsible for this population, and
what organizational strategies might succeed in meeting their
complex needs?1
THE ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION
AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
The Foundation entered the world of mental
health services in the mid-1980s--well into its fourth cycle
of reform, the cycle that introduced the community support
system and an expanded focus on the social welfare needs of
those with chronic mental illness. In addition to mental health
services, community support systems included rehabilitation
and general medical services, housing support, case management,
transportation, and social welfare assistance in obtaining
income support, entitlements, and family support. By the mid-1980s,
the ideology and the framework for a decentralized community
support system had gained widespread acceptance, but implementation
fell short of its goals, particularly in large American cities.
Mental illness was prevalent among homeless
persons served by sites in The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Health Care for the Homeless program. Homelessness among mentally
ill persons was seen as evidence of a failure in both the
organization and financing of mental health services and in
providing access to mainstream social welfare resources. In
urban districts, the service system was fragmented, with no
central point of accountability. People with chronic mental
illness lacked access to social welfare resources, such as
Social Security disability payments and rental subsidies from
the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
After a period of analysis from 1984 to
1986, the Foundation concluded that the problem of mental
health services was a systems problem, requiring
intervention in the organization and financing of services.2
It developed a series of three initiatives: the
Mental Health Services Development Program, the Mental Health
Services Program for Youth, and the Program on Chronic Mental
Illness, the biggest of the three. All began in the late 1980s
and continued into the 1990s.
Although the Foundation's activity in mental
health slowed in the mid-1990s, the impact of these three
initiatives was felt throughout the mental health services
field, stimulating new research and new ways of looking at
service systems. The initiatives also influenced federal and
state mental health activities--especially a subsequent wave
of demonstration research. Table 6.1 describes the key elements
of these programs.
THE FIRST MENTAL
HEALTH INITIATIVES
The Mental Health Services Program for Youth
(MHSPY) and the Program on Chronic Mental Illness (PCMI) were
designed to demonstrate the benefits of centralizing responsibility
and authority for the care and treatment of children with
severe emotional disorders and adults with severe mental illness.
The complex problems of these two populations demanded a wide
array of services from both the mental health system and the
broader health and human services system. These systems were
themselves fragmented, and, although they shared many clients,
rarely collaborated effectively with each other. During the
fourth cycle of reform, state and federal government innovators
developed the conceptual framework of the community support
system for delivering services to individuals with complex
problems. Of course, various community support systems had
been proposed and introduced in scattered communities in the
United States and elsewhere. Although a small body of literature
evaluating them had emerged in the early 1980s,3
there was no established body of experience to draw
upon to guide their widespread adoption.
MHSPY focused on integrating the broader
human service systems in urban areas to support the development
of systems of care for children with severe emotional disorders.
Children and their parents were placed at the center of a
system of services involving health care and mental health
care, the schools, child welfare, and, when necessary, juvenile
justice. A better-integrated system of services was expected
to envelop the child and promote the continuity of care and
improved outcomes. The evaluation of MHSPY concentrated on
how strategies for systems integration were put into place:
it did not evaluate individual child and family outcomes.
This approach was consistent with the objectives of the demonstration,
which emphasized systems change. It was assumed that positive
outcomes would naturally result from integrated services and
improved systems of care and "wrap-around" services.4
In similar fashion, the Program on Chronic
Mental Illness focused on systems integration through the
creation of Local Mental Health Authorities--governmental
and quasi-governmental entities designed to centralize administrative,
fiscal, and clinical responsibility for adults with chronic
mental illness. It was believed that these would reduce fragmentation,
introduce a community support system, improve the continuity
of care, and promote improved clinical and social outcomes
for individuals and their families.5
In contrast, the Mental Health Services
Development Program provided grant resources to develop specialized
case management, assertive community treatment (ACT) teams,
and vocational support programs. ACT, a multidisciplinary
team approach to providing intensive mental health services
to severely disabled individuals living in community settings,
was the prototype. Like other innovative community mental
health services, ACT had been developed and evaluated in a
few settings but not widely adopted. By sponsoring innovative
programs at the level of direct service delivery, the Mental
Health Services Development Program largely ignored trendy
systems interventions to focus on improving clinical and social
care services for individual clients with severe mental illness.6
In retrospect the Mental Health Services
Development Program may have been the most forward-thinking
of the three initiatives, although at the time it was viewed
as the most prosaic and traditional. The Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation devoted more resources to the systems demonstrations
for adults and children, but the evaluations of the larger
initiatives, particularly the PCMI, demonstrated the limitations
of systems change alone and underscored the importance of
improving client-level service interventions, such as those
sponsored by the Mental Health Services Development Program.
THE PROGRAM ON CHRONIC MENTAL
ILLNESS
Late in 1986, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
provided $29 million in grants and loans to nine cities in
the United States: Austin, Baltimore, Charlotte, Cincinnati,
Columbus, Denver, Honolulu, Philadelphia, and Toledo. Additionally,
the Department of Housing and Urban Development provided each
city with 125 Section 8 certificates to subsidize rents for
individuals with severe and persistent mental illness so that
they could afford safe housing. A national program office,
run by Miles Shore and Martin Cohen at the Harvard Medical
School, provided the grantees with technical assistance in
setting up a Local Mental Health Authority and developing
housing in their cities.7
Often, these Local Mental Health Authorities
were part of city or county government--or were private organizations
with a board of directors appointed by a
government agency. They planned mental health care delivery
at each site, allocated resources, and provided clinical oversight.
Some also provided mental health services directly. Each also
created a housing development agency to help create housing
opportunities for clients using Section 8 rent certificates
from HUD. The Local Mental Health Authority assumed responsibility
for the care of adults with mental illness, particularly for
individuals with chronic mental illness. It was accountable
for integrating the system of care to promote continuity of
care and meet the complex needs of the target population.8
The Program on Chronic Mental Illness was
a demonstration of systems change, and was not intended (or
funded) to provide specific clinical and social services.
It was expected, however, that state-of-the-art mental health
services would be available at each of the sites. The logic
of the program held that poor outcomes for those with severe
mental illness were due to a lack of coordinated services.
Systems change, in particular a better-integrated system of
care with a Local Mental Health Authority at the center, would
lead to more continuity of care, to greater availability of
care (such as ACT), and ultimately to better outcomes for
people with severe mental illness and their families. This
was the systems integration hypothesis that the Program on
Chronic Mental Illness was designed to demonstrate.
EVALUATING THE PROGRAM ON CHRONIC
MENTAL ILLNESS
Initially, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
was not interested in evaluating the impact of the Program
on Chronic Mental Illness on individuals, preferring to focus
on the systems-level objectives, as it did with the Mental
Health Services Program for Youth. However, the National Institute
of Mental Health (NIMH) was eager to support a more elaborate
evaluation.
NIMH saw the Program on Chronic Mental
Illness as an opportunity to test a number of strategies for
research on mental health services, especially in the area
of assessing individual outcomes. In particular, it wanted
to evaluate the impact of systems change on individual mental
health, including symptoms, social and occupational functioning,
and quality of life. NIMH allocated $2 million to match the
$2 million offered by the Foundation for the evaluation.
The Request for
Proposals, jointly prepared by the Foundation's and NIMH's
staffs, reflected the intent to evaluate the Program on Chronic
Mental Illness from systems-level implementation through its
impact on individuals with chronic mental illness and their
families. Ten organizations were invited to submit proposals.
The team of investigators selected to evaluate the program
were from the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University,
and the University of North Carolina--with additional consultants.
It was a multidisciplinary team with expertise in the sociology
of organizations, housing and urban studies, economics, and
clinical and social outcomes research. Members of the evaluation
team were awarded additional grants--one to study interorganizational
networks, for example, and another to assess family burden--and
collaborated with other investigators, who were separately
funded to study results at other sites. This expanded evaluation
gave the research team the ability to investigate the program
in great detail and from multiple perspectives.9
The results of the evaluation, which extended
for a year or so past the end of the program in 1992 have
been published elsewhere. 10
However, several points can be made here about them and their
impact on the mental health services field.
The evaluation concluded that Local Mental
Health Authorities were feasible and desirable structures
for centralizing administrative, fiscal, and clinical responsibility
in large cities. Such authorities, however, were slow to be
created and required technical assistance, even more than
financial resources, to establish and strengthen them. They
took many forms, adapting the basic concept to local conditions
with good effect; no standard form could be recommended.11
Individuals interviewed at each of the
demonstration sites praised the Local Mental Health Authority.
Measures of interorganizational network relationships (derived
from detailed surveys of administrators at dozens of organizations
at each site) demonstrated that the systems in the PCMI cities
were less fragmented and more centralized, and reported more
contact with one another as the demonstration progressed--and
more so when compared to a nondemonstration site with a model
mental health system but no Local Mental Health Authority.12
Furthermore, demonstration sites with functioning Local Mental
Health Authorities showed higher levels of continuity of care
for people discharged from twenty-four-hour acute care settings.13
However, the program's
impact on individuals and their families was mixed. The evaluation
contained a quasi-experimental comparison of two cohorts of
individuals with severe mental illness--one recruited near
the beginning of the demonstration and followed for a year,
the other recruited near the end. Outcomes were derived from
well-validated interviews of the participants, with questions
based mostly on symptoms, behavior, and experiences. The expectation
was that the later cohort, exposed to the effects of improved
systems, would have better outcomes than the earlier cohort,
and that the improvement would reflect the positive impact
of improved integration of services and continuity of care.
Consistent with the basic evaluation hypothesis,
the cohorts observed late in the demonstration were more likely
to have a case manager and to retain the same case manager
throughout the follow-up period. The results on social and
clinical outcomes did not meet expectations, however. There
were no differences in clinical, social, and quality of life
outcomes for cohorts of patients compared early and late in
the demonstration, followed for a one-year period after discharge
from twenty-four-hour care. Although most clients in both
of the cohorts at each of the sites showed substantial improvement
during the observation period, there were no statistically
significant differences between the two groups.14
More consistent with expectations, family
members of these clients found that their burden was reduced
when the clients had case managers.15
Furthermore, a separate study demonstrated the benefits of
receiving services directly. In Baltimore and Cincinnati,
cohorts of clients who received HUD certificates to subsidize
their rent and who received case management services showed
measurable improvements in some areas, using almost identical
measures to those used with the other cohorts.16
The findings on individual outcomes led
to considerable discussion and a search for explanations,
particularly given the positive findings on systems change.
There was resistance to viewing the results as a refutation
of the systems integration hypothesis, the basic premise of
the program. Were the findings evidence that improvements
in systems integration could not be expected to result in
improved outcomes for those with chronic mental illness? The
evaluators were reluctant to discount the positive findings
about continuity of care, case management, and reduced family
burden, and the positive outcomes for recipients of rent certificates.
The evaluators
suggested that limitations in the design of the evaluation,
such as the selection of a small sample derived only from
hospitalized patients with varying exposure to the benefits
of the program, might offer some explanation. Another possible
reason for the mixed results could lie in the type of services
received by the clients. A detailed retrospective survey of
services at each of the sites indicated that the vast majority
of the clients received the standard form of case management
available at the sites, but that this case management was
not the state-of-the-art care recommended for most individuals
with chronic mental illness who had been discharged from twenty-four-hour
care. In particular, assertive community treatment (ACT) was
practically unavailable to the subjects in the client evaluation
study.17
INTERPRETING
THE EVALUATION
Many individuals, including staff members
at The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, emphasized the negative
findings about the impact on clinical and social outcomes.
The positive findings about the systems-level effects, including
the feasibility of Local Mental Health Authorities and successes
in developing independent housing, were largely ignored in
favor of seeing the evaluation of the program only in terms
of the failure to find social and clinical improvements for
individuals with chronic mental illness. Even this was somewhat
surprising in view of other positive findings about the program's
impact on continuity of care, family burden, and individual
outcomes for recipients of HUD rent certificates. Before the
demonstration, HUD policy makers and program staff expressed
doubt that individuals with chronic mental illness could use
the Section 8 rent certificates effectively--let alone have
improved outcomes when using them.
There are several possible explanations
for such a narrow interpretation of the findings. A clue came
early in the demonstration, when Foundation staff members
pushed the evaluators to publish some findings from the continuing
evaluation. The response was a special section of three papers
in Hospital & Community Psychiatry describing the demonstration,
its evaluation, and some preliminary findings, including the
slowness of implementation in a few of the larger cities.18
An editorial that accompanied the articles, written by one
of the reviewers of the manuscripts, concluded that the program
represented nothing new and that its initial lack of success
(based on delays in implementation) indicated
a flawed design.19
It seemed that some people within the mental health field
were willing to make decisions about the program even without
data about its impact.
Other observers believed that the success
of the demonstration could be assessed only in terms of the
impact on people with chronic mental illness. They took the
position that achievements at the systems level were unimportant
if they were not accompanied by an impact on the clients.
The failure to find client-level impacts
in the cohort comparison was uniform and unexpected. It attracted
great attention, obscuring many of the individual-level positive
findings. To a certain extent, the evaluators themselves were
to blame for the misplaced emphasis. The finding that improvement
in the organization of care made no difference in clients'
mental health required an explanation--which the evaluators
did not provide initially.
After eliminating methodological explanations
for no-difference findings, the evaluators sought substantive
answers. The repeated site visits had offered a possible explanation,
as had site visits by members of the National Advisory Committee
(NAC), after the program had been under way for two years.
NAC members, especially the psychiatrists, returned from the
sites concerned that the Local Mental Health Authorities lacked
clinical plans. Although the Local Mental Health Authorities
had developed administrative and financial plans, they had
not given much thought to clinical services for clients. Instead,
they relied primarily on ordinary case management approaches,
which are typical of public sector mental health services.
Initially, the Foundation staff, the Program on Chronic Mental
Illness staff, and the evaluation staff considered the NAC
observations to be a red herring, as the aim of the program
was systems reform, not simply clinical services reform. As
the program progressed, however, it became clear that the
sites lacked clinical direction and had not adopted state-of-the-art
services, such as ACT.
The evaluators concluded that systems change
and the creation of a Local Mental Health Authority were necessary
but not by themselves sufficient to produce individual benefits.
This conclusion was reinforced by several additional observations:
Individuals in the program who received specific enhancements
in service, such as the Section 8 rent certificates and the
attendant support services, did experience improved outcomes.
In addition, at one of the sites, a well-defined decline in
the availability of clinical services during a fiscal crisis
was associated with a marked drop in individual
outcomes.20
Although the systems change strategy of the program had produced
accountable Local Mental Health Authorities that centralized
responsibility for the chronically mentally ill, had integrated
services, and had developed independent housing, the sites
did not experience dramatic improvements in client outcomes
without special attention to the quality of mental health
services.
Similar findings were produced by another
important evaluation in the children's mental health field.
Leonard Bickman's evaluation of a demonstration at Fort Bragg,
North Carolina, found that systems change without enhancement
of clinical services did not improve the mental health of
patients.21
The content and quality of clinical and
social services had been a neglected element in the Program
on Chronic Mental Illness and other demonstrations of system
change conducted during the same period. As a result of the
failure of systems change to improve individuals' mental health,
many in the field of mental health service development began
to focus on quality-of-care research, clinical guidelines,
and evidence-based practice. It also brought renewed efforts
in research demonstrations to link changes in systems to changes
at the level of individual clients.
THE INFLUENCE
OF THE PROGRAM
Despite a narrow interpretation of the findings
of its evaluation, the Program on Chronic Mental Illness demonstrated
the feasibility and the utility of Local Mental Health Authorities
in promoting the integration of service systems. The program
also demonstrated that integration could have a positive impact
on continuity of care, family burden, and housing status for
individuals with severe mental illness. In addition, the Mental
Health Services Program for Youth illustrated several models
of integrating services for children with severe emotional
disorders. Together with the Mental Health Services Development
Program, the Program on Chronic Mental Illness underscored
the importance of attending to the need for high-quality services,
even in well-integrated service systems.
When the evaluators of the program concluded
that integration of the service system was necessary but not
sufficient to improve individual outcomes, they set in motion
a series of activities in the development of mental health
services--activities that influenced the
design of subsequent government projects. They also influenced
a new generation of mental health service activities funded
by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Along with other trends in health services--managed
care and a growing concern about outcomes, for instance--the
findings from the Program on Chronic Mental Illness and other
demonstration programs intensified interest in measuring the
quality of care. This interest included attention to using
services whose effectiveness has been demonstrated, the development
of evidence-based treatment recommendations, and attention
to the quality of clinical and social services in programs
devoted to systems reform. The evaluators of the Program on
Chronic Mental Illness themselves became involved in two federal
projects extending their work into the new areas: the Access
to Community Care and Effective Services and Supports project
(ACCESS), and the Schizophrenia Patient Outcomes Research
Team (PORT).
THE ACCESS PROJECT
During the waning days of the Program on
Chronic Mental Illness in 1992, a federal task force on homelessness
and mental illness released a report; among the recommendations
was a call for a service systems demonstration project to
further test the systems integration hypothesis.22
The demonstration was to determine whether a small grant of
resources to promote the integration of systems would result
in better coordination among mental health providers and other
human services providers and would promote residential stability
and improved quality of life for individuals who were homeless
and had a mental illness. ACCESS was designed with the Program
on Chronic Mental Illness in mind.23
Some members of the task force and the staff
at the Center for Mental Health Services, the federal agency
given responsibility for the new demonstration, were aware
of the more nuanced view of the findings of the Program on
Chronic Mental Illness. They encouraged ACCESS to provide
substantial resources to the demonstration sites to develop
clinical and social services, in addition to grants and technical
assistance for promoting systems integration. Service grants
of between $600,000 and $800,000 a year were made to each
of the sites to develop Assertive Community Treatment outreach
teams--the service viewed as missing in the Program on Chronic
Mental Illness and presumed to be responsible
for the no-difference findings. In this fashion, ACCESS became
a demonstration of the integration of systems combined with
improvement of services.
It was no accident that the Program on
Chronic Mental Illness influenced the federal ACCESS program.
In spite of a sense of competition between the federal mental
health agencies and The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Foundation
staff members had coordinated their efforts in the program
with those of the government. Furthermore, the Foundation
coordinated the funding and oversight of the evaluation with
the National Institute of Mental Health and other federal
agencies. Federal and state governments knew about the program,
and were aware of its findings. Additionally, participants
in the program and its evaluation served as consultants to
the government on the design of ACCESS. Many of the evaluators
of the program ultimately worked on its evaluation.
As ACCESS rolled out in 1993, the findings
of the Program on Chronic Mental Illness were held out as
lessons--particularly the need to develop state-of-the-art
services at each site. This was critical to the design of
ACCESS and its evaluation that compared the nine sites in
each state receiving both additional resources for services
integration and enhanced clinical services in the form of
intensive case management--that is, ACT services--and the
nine sites that received only resources to enhance clinical
services. This strategy assesses whether the quality of services
alone, or in concert with systems integration, leads to improvement
in clinical and social outcomes.
Preliminary results indicate that, twelve
months after first receiving services, previously homeless
service recipients in sites with better integration of services
are more likely to be independently housed than those in sites
with less well-integrated services.24
Studies of the impact of changes in integration over time,
however, are not complete.
THE SCHIZOPHRENIA PORT AND TREATMENT
RECOMMENDATIONS
When the Agency for Health Care Policy and
Research and the National Institute of Mental Health announced
their intent to fund a Schizophrenia Patient Outcomes Research
Team (PORT), a group of the evaluators for the Program on
Chronic Mental Illness seized the opportunity and, with some
new colleagues, successfully bid on the contract. This gave
them the chance to apply the lessons learned from
the evaluation of the Program on Chronic Mental Illness to
treatment recommendations. Now in its sixth year, the team
has reviewed the literature on the effectiveness of treatment,
conducted field studies, and published treatment recommendations
on schizophrenia. It has almost completed an assessment of
the impact of efforts to disseminate the recommendations.25
The PORT treatment recommendations coincided
with a broader initiative within the mental health field to
develop treatment guidelines and medication algorithms for
use by psychiatrists and other practitioners. Several efforts
at disseminating them have been initiated, among them the
Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP), that is supported
by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and other funders.
ACCESS and PORT, as well as the original
Program on Chronic Mental Illness, have underscored the importance
of technical assistance in facilitating the implementation
of a program; technical assistance in the design of Local
Mental Health Authorities and on housing development were
essential in the program. This lesson was relearned in ACCESS,
in which the adoption of systems change was hampered by a
lack of understanding of the central concept of service systems
integration. After almost two years of a stuttering start,
special resources were allocated to ACCESS project implementation.
As a result, each of the ACCESS sites developed strategic
plans for services integration and increased its level of
integration activities. New demonstrations and efforts at
disseminating treatment guidelines have made similar discoveries.
A NEW EMPHASIS ON CONTENT AND
QUALITY OF CARE
The emphasis on the content and quality
of services has extended from ACCESS and the Schizophrenia
PORT to a number of federal mental health demonstration projects.
Programs focusing on employment services, supportive housing,
treatment of simultaneously occurring mental illness and substance
abuse, and diversion of individuals with mental illness from
jail into treatment all underscore the importance of quality
of care and the development of services. This emphasis is
traceable to the lessons learned from the Mental Health Services
Program for Youth, the Mental Health Services Development
Program, and the Program on Chronic Mental Illness. Models
of systems integration and service innovation,
developed in these Foundation-supported programs, have been
replicated in newer demonstration programs and have had a
far-reaching impact.
Notes
1. G. Grob. The Mad
Among Us. New York: Free Press, 1994; H. Goldman and J. Morrissey.
"The Alchemy of Mental Health Policy: Homelessness and the
Fourth Cycle of Reform," American Journal of Public Health,
1985, 75, 727-731. (return to article)
2. L. Aiken, S. Somers,
and M. Shore. "Private Foundations in Health Affairs: A Case
Study of a National Initiative for the Chronically Mentally
Ill." American Psychologist, 1986, 41, 1,290-1,295.(return
to article)
3. R. C. Tessler
and H. H. Goldman. The Chronically Mentally Ill: Assessing
Community Support Programs. Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1982.(return
to article)
4. M. J. England and
R. F. Cole. "Broad Continuum of Care Needed to Serve Mentally
Ill Children," Psychiatric Times, 1990, 7(11); R. F. Cole,
"Financing Policy and Administrative Mechanisms for Child
and Adolescent Mental Health Services." The Child, Youth,
and Family Service Quarterly, 1990, 13(2); R. F. Cole and
S. Poe. Partnerships for Care. Washington, D.C.: Washington
Business Group on Health, 1993; Final Progress Report, "Evaluation
of the Mental Health Services Program for Youth Phase III,"
RWJF Grant #13613 Grant Period-February 1, 1991-June 30, 1995.
RWJF: Princeton, N.J. (File).(return to article)
5. M. Shore and M.
Cohen. "The Robert Wood Johnson Program on Chronic Mental
Illness: An Overview." Hospital and Community Psychiatry,
1990, 41, 1,212-1,216; M. Shore and M. Cohen. "Introduction."
Milbank Quarterly, 1994, 72, 31-35. (return
to article)
6. L. I. Stein and M.
A. Test. Alternatives to Mental Hospital Treatment. New York:
Plenum, 1975; L. I. Stein, "The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Mental Health Services Development Program," New Directions
for Mental Health Services 45, 1990, 75-89; Final Report:
"Mental Health Services Development Program January 1, 1987-August
31, 1991." Grant I.D. #16485. RWJF: Princeton, N.J. (File);
L. I. Stein. "Innovative Community Mental Health Programs."
New Directions for Mental Health Services 56, 1992, entire
issue. (return to article)
7. H. Goldman, J. Morrissey,
and M. S. Ridgely. "Form and Function of Mental Health Authorities
at RWJ Foundation Program Sites: Preliminary Observations."
Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 1990, 41, 1,222-1,230.(return
to article)
8. Ibid.(return
to article)
9. H.
Goldman, A. Lehman, J. Morrissey, S. Newman, R. Frank, and
D. Steinwachs. "Design for the National Evaluation of the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Program on Chronic Mental Illness."
Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 1990, 41, 1,217-1,221.
(return to article)
10. H. Goldman, J. Morrissey,
and M. S. Ridgely. "Form and Function of Mental Health Authorities
at RWJ Foundation Program Sites: Preliminary Observations."
Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 1990, 41, 1,222-1,230;
H. Goldman, J. P. Morrissey, M. S. Ridgely, and others. "Lessons
from the Program on Chronic Mental Illness." Health Affairs,
1992, 11, 51-68; H. Goldman, J. Morrissey, and M. S. Ridgely.
"Evaluating the Program on Chronic Mental Illness" (RWJ PCMI).
Milbank Quarterly, 1994, 72(1), 37-48; J. Morrissey, M. Calloway,
T. Bartko, M. S. Ridgely, H. Goldman, and R. Paulson. "Mental
Health Authorities and Service System Change from the RWJ
PCMI." Milbank Quarterly, 1994, 72(1), 49-80; A. Lehman, L.
Postrado, D. Roth, S. McNary, and H. Goldman. "An Evaluation
of Continuity of Care, Case Management, and Client Outcomes
in The RWJ PCMI." Milbank Quarterly, 1994, 72(1), 105-122;
M. S. Ridgely, J. Morrissey, R. Paulson, H. Goldman, and M.
Calloway. "Case Management and Client Outcomes in the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation Program on Chronic Mental Illness."
Psychiatric Services, 1996, 4(7), 737-743; J. A. Talbott.
"Evaluating the Johnson Foundation Program on Chronic Mental
Illness: An Interview with Howard Goldman." Psychiatric Services,
1995, 46(5), 501-503. (return to article)
11. H. Goldman, J.
Morrissey, and M. S. Ridgely. "Form and Function of Mental
Health Authorities at RWJ Foundation Program Sites: Preliminary
Observations." Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 1990, 41,
1,222-1,230; H. H. Goldman, J. P. Morrissey, M. S. Ridgely
and others, "Lessons from the Program on Chronic Mental Illness."
Health Affairs, 1992, 11, 51-68; H. Goldman, J. Morrissey,
and M. S. Ridgely. "Evaluating the Program on Chronic Mental
Illness (RWJ PCMI)." Milbank Quarterly, 1994, 72(1), 37-48.
(return to article)
12. J. Morrissey,
M. Calloway, T. Bartko, M. S. Ridgely, H. Goldman, and R.
Paulson. "Mental Health Authorities and Service System Change
from the RWJ PCMI." Milbank Quarterly, 1994, 72(1), 49-80.
(return to article)
13. A. Lehman, L.
Postrado, D. Roth, S. McNary, and H. Goldman. "An Evaluation
of Continuity of Care, Case Management, and Client Outcomes
in the RWJ PCMI." Milbank Quarterly, 1994, 72(1), 105-122.
(return to article)
14. Ibid. (return
to article)
15. R. Tessler and
G. Gamache. "Continuity of Care, Residence, and Family Burden
in Ohio." Milbank Quarterly, 1994, 72, 149-170.(return
to article)
16.
S. Newman, J. Rechovsky, K. Kaneda, and A. Hendrick. "The
Effects of Independent Living on Persons with Chronic Mental
Illness: An Assessment of the Section 8 Certificate Program."
Milbank Quarterly, 1994, 72, 171-198. (return
to article)
17. M. S. Ridgely,
J. Morrissey, R. Paulson, H. Goldman, and M. Calloway. "Case
Management and Client Outcomes in The Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation Program on Chronic Mental Illness." Psychiatric
Services, 1996, 4(7), 737-743. (return
to article)
18. M. Shore and
M. Cohen. "The Robert Wood Johnson Program on Chronic Mental
Illness: An Overview." Hospital and Community Psychiatry 41,
1990, 1,212-1,216; M. Shore and M. Cohen. "Introduction."
Milbank Quarterly, 1994, 72, 31-35; H. Goldman, J. Morrissey,
and M. S. Ridgeley. "Form and Function of Mental Health Authorities
at RWJ Foundation Program Sites: Preliminary Observations."
Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 1990, 41, 1,222-1,230;
H. Goldman, A. Lehman, J. Morrissey, S. Newman, R. Frank,
and D. Steinwachs. "Design for the National Evaluation of
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Program on Chronic Mental
Illness." Hospital and Community Psychiatry, 1990, 41, 1,217-1,221.
(return to article)
19. J. Rosenberger.
"Central Mental Health Authorities: Politically Flawed?" Hospital
and Community Psychiatry, 1990, 41, 1,171.(return
to article)
20. D. Shern, N.
Wilson, A. Coen, D. Patrick, M. Foster, D. Bartsch, and J.
Demmler. "Client Outcomes II: Longitudinal Data from the Colorado
Treatment Outcome Study." Milbank Quarterly, 1994, 72, 123-148.
(return to article)
21. L. Bickman.
"A Continuum of Care: More Is Not Always Better." American
Psychologist, 1996, 51, 689-701. (return
to article)
22. Federal Task
Force on Homelessness and Mental Illness. Outcasts on Main
Street (ADM 92-1904). Washington, D.C.: Interagency Council
on the Homeless, 1992.(return to article)
23. F. Randolph,
M. Blasinsky, W. Leginski, L. Parker, and H. Goldman. "Creating
Integrated Service Systems for Homeless Persons With Mental
Illness: The ACCESS Program." Psychiatric Services, 1997,
48, 369-373. (return to article)
24. R. Rosenheck,
J. Morrissey, J. Lam, M. Calloway, M. Johnsen, H. Goldman,
F. Randolph, M. Blasinsky, A. Fontana, R. Calsyn, and G. Teague.
"Service System Integration, Access to Services, and Housing
Outcomes in a Program for Homeless Persons with S evere Mental
Illness." American Journal of Public Health, 1998, 88(11),
1,610-1,615. (return to article)
25. See Schizophrenia
Bulletin, 1995, 21(4), for a series of articles on the issue;
and A. Lehman, D. Steinwachs, and others. "Translating Research
Into Practice: The Schizophrenia Patient Outcomes Research
Team (PORT) Treatment Recommendations." Schizophrenia Bulletin,
1998, 24(1), 11-19. (return to article)
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