Article by Hoag Levins, Digital Publications, Penn LDI
The call for integrating physical and mental health care is not new, but in a half-hour keynote address to the October 29 Penn LDI virtual conference, Benjamin Miller, PsyD, provided one of recent memory’s most cogent and eloquent explanations of why and how that might be accomplished. The University of Pennsylvania event was titled “Mental Health Care in Flux: Exploring New Ways to Deliver Care.”
Miller’s Paul Starr-esque historic overview of how we arrived at the current ineffective policies opened an afternoon gathering in which nine other top experts detailed the research and innovative programs now seeking to address the mental health care system’s documented shortcomings. All concurred that the COVID-19 pandemic has spawned broad waves of stress, anxiety and need for mental health care that have drawn increased attention in policymaking circles. The conference was co-hosted by Penn LDI and the Penn Center for Mental Health.
Conference participants agreed that the primary keystone of the issue is that mental health care has long been tightly segregated from the rest of the health care system and, in its isolation, starved of resources and critical synergistic connections.
Read full article and watch the video from the conference.
