CLINICAL EFFECTIVENESS
Judging evidence about the clinical effectiveness of behavioral health integration models is complex, because the best evidence is usually for the narrowest, most controllable programs. This means there is more evidence about patient outcomes for the treatment of individual diagnoses than for the clinical effectiveness of comprehensive programs that treat many conditions and diagnoses. Today, the evidence for the latter is growing as well.
And yet, Integrated Primary Care is clinically effective and improves patients’ experience of their healthcare using brief interventions:
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Whether you focus on improvements in the acuity of an illness like depression.
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Or take a more general look at symptoms and functioning of any patient who gets the care.
Blount, A. (2003). Integrated primary care: Organizing the evidence. Families, Systems & Health: 21, 121-134.