Is your organization ready to launch a depression collaborative care program?

There are organizational factors to consider in deciding whether the time is right to begin planning with OMH to implement a collaborative care (IMPACT) program:

• Can your organizations support the staffing resource needs and licensure requirements for the role of depression care manager? If you are hiring new staff for this role, do you have a recruitment plan and timeline for hiring? 
• Do you have space in your clinic(s) for the care manager or do you need to consider alternative models, such as telemedicine-based collaborative care? 
• Do you have a plan for allocating or recruiting, hiring or contracting for psychiatric consultation services?  
• Does your organization have to balance any competing priorities at this time, such as implementing other new programs or working on quality initiatives? Do you have the “bandwidth” needed to coordinate multiple innovations and be successful at all?
• Do you have a clinical supervisor or operations manager in place that can be an effective program lead in implementing collaborative care? The program lead needs to have time and resources to devote to planning, recruiting, hiring and supporting staff to be successful in new roles. The program lead must also lead efforts to assure that reliable work flows for depression screening and treatment are tested and in place in clinics.  
• Do you have a draft business plan for financing and paying for the costs of your depression care manager and psychiatric consultant over time? 
• Do primary care providers in your organization have prior experience, interests or concerns about collaborative care? Do your primary care providers have any concerns that need to be addressed? 

Please contact Amy (Jones) Renaud Amy.Jones@omh.ny.gov at OMH if you have questions about any of the above readiness factors or would like to ask to participate in the NYS OMH Learning Network. OMH or a member of the UW AIMS training team will follow up with you to answer your questions and learn more about your implementation plan and time line.  

OMH will not sponsor organizations to participate in in-person training and follow-up coaching and support until the organization has a plan to address these readiness factors and any new members of their collaborative care team (depression care manager and psychiatric consultant) are hired and in place. 

Readiness Resources and Milestones Tool

Download and view a sample self-assessment tool to help gauge your site's organizational and clinical readiness for collaborative care implementation. 

Download and view the Learning Network Collaborative Care Implementation Milestones tool to help track your site's progress implementing collaborative care