Technology-enabled Behavioral Health Integration Decreases Emergency Department Utilization.

Background: Behavioral health integration allows for patient-centered care, leads to higher levels of provider-patient engagement, and is key to improving patient outcomes. However, behavioral health integration is administratively burdensome and therefore is often not adopted. Technology presents opportunities to increase care team efficiency and improve patient outcomes. The goal of this study was to retrospectively compare clinical outcomes and emergency department utilization in patients using a technology platform compared to patients receiving treatment as usual. Methods: The technology platform, NeuroFlow, was deployed to deliver technology-enabled behavioral health integration in 30 clinics, and 598 electronic health records were analyzed. Results: In the six-month period following technology-enabled behavioral health integration implementation, emergency department utilization decreased by 34% in the treatment group (n=259), while increasing by 58% in the treatment as usual group (n=339). Additionally, statistically significant (p < .01) decreases in PHQ-9 (-17.3%) and GAD-7 (-12.4%) scores were only observed in the treatment group. Conclusion: Findings from this study support use of a technology-enabled behavioral health tool to decrease emergency department use and highlight the importance of measurement-based care. Future research will be key to enhancing behavioral health technology and integration to further improve patient outcomes and reduce emergency department utilization.

Pilot Study of a Program to Increase Mothers' Understanding of Dads.

The present study evaluated the effects of mothers' participation in an 8-week coparenting intervention program, Understanding Dad™, on mothers' awareness and attitudes regarding how their relationships with fathers influence paternal involvement with children, knowledge of healthy pro-relationship skills, and relationship self-efficacy. Thirty-four mothers were recruited from four sites to participate in a study that used a pretest/posttest one-group design. Over the course of this 8-week program, mothers demonstrated moderate to large gains in each of the outcome measures, after controlling for mothers' educational level. Moreover, there was one significant within-subjects interaction effect for time × location. That is, mothers made significantly greater gains in pro-relationship knowledge in one of the intervention sites. Implications for future research are discussed.

Children's natural conversations following exposure to a rumor: linkages to later false reports.

Previous research has shown that children naturally propagate overheard false rumors and that the circulation of such information can induce children and their peers to wrongly recall actually experiencing rumored-but-nonexperienced events. The current study extends this work by recording 3- to 6-year-olds' naturally occurring conversations following exposure to an erroneous rumor. Results indicate that, compared with children who overhear rumors spread by adults, those who pick up rumors from peers during natural interactions engage in deeper and more inventive rumor mongering. Moreover, the degree and originality of rumor propagation was linked with various qualities of children's subsequent recollections at both 1-week and 4-week delayed interviews. Furthermore, compared with 3- and 4-year-olds, 5- and 6-year-olds naturally transmitted more novel and coherent embellishments of the rumor to their peers, and more of their false narrative reports during the interviews overlapped with their own and their peers' utterances transmitted soon after the rumor was planted.

Transitioning from In-Person to Telemedicine Within Primary Care Behavioral Health During COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic created significant mental stressors among patients, which had the potential to impede access to primary care behavioral health (PCBH) services through rapid unplanned shifts to telehealth. The authors utilized retrospective administrative data and patient surveys to assess the feasibility, acceptability, and clinical outcomes of Jefferson Health PCBH pre- and post-COVID pandemic onset (Cohort 1 in person-only visits and Cohort 2 telemedicine-only visits). Using a retrospective cohort comparison study, outcomes included number of patients receiving PCBH in both cohorts, frequency of visits, no-show and cancellation rates, change in mean PHQ-9 and GAD-7 scores for patients, changes in the levels of depression and anxiety severity using established severity levels, and patient satisfaction with telehealth (Cohort 2 only). Patients in Cohort 2 were significantly more likely to have an anxiety diagnosis, had a smaller average number of visits, and were more likely to have a cancelled appointment. Both cohorts had statistically significant improvements in PHQ-9 and GAD-7 scores. In regression analyses, treatment cohort was not a significant predictor of final PHQ-9 or GAD-7 score. More members of Cohort 2 reported severe anxiety at both initial and final measurements. Nearly all Cohort 2 patients agreed or strongly agreed that telehealth made it easier for them to obtain care, that the platform was easy to use, and the visit was effective. Overall, PCBH telehealth services post-COVID-19 onset were feasible, acceptable to patients, and yielded similar clinical improvements to in-person behavioral health visits conducted before the pandemic.