The Primary Care Toolkit

Integrated care is receiving a lot of attention from clinicians, administrators, policy makers, and researchers. Given the current healthcare crises in the United States, where costs, quality, and access to care are of particular concern, many are looking for new and better ways of delivering behavioral health services. Integrating behavioral health into primary care medical settings has been shown to: (1) produce healthier patients; (2) produce medical savings; (3) produce higher patient satisfaction; (4) leverage the primary care physician's time so that they can be more productive; and (5) increase physician satisfaction. For these reasons this is an emerging paradigm with a lot of interest and momentum. For example, the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health has recently endorsed redesigning the mental health system so that much of this is integrated into primary care medicine.

Larry James, Ph.D, ABPP, is Chair of the Department of Psychology at Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu. He holds adjunct appointments at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences School of Medicine, Howard University Hospital, University of West Florida, American School of Professional Psychology, University of Hawaii, and Hawaii Pacific University. He is President-elect of the American Board of Health Psychology; he is on the Board of Trustees of the American Board of Professional Psychology as well as on the Board of Directors of Division 38 (Health Psychology) of the American Psychological Association; and he is a member of the Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security. He is an Associate Editor on the Journal of Military Psychology (Division 19 of the American Psychological Association) and has received numerous professional, military, and athletic honors.

William T. O'Donohue, PhD is Professor of the Department of Psychology and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Nevada at Reno. From 1999 through 2005 he was Nicholas Cummings Professor of Organized Behavioral Healthcare Delivery at the same institution. In addition, he is Director of the Victoms of Crimes Treatment Center and the Sexual Assault Prevention and Counseling Services at University of Nevada, Reno. He is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Behavior Therapy and since 1999 has served on the Advisory Board of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies. His areas of specialization are mental health service delivery, forensic psychology, human sexuality (treatment of victims and offenders), management and administration, behavior therapy, and philosophy of psychology.