Strategies for Integrating Psychiatric Pharmacist Providers to Better Meet Patients' Mental Health Needs

In this clip, Tera Moore, National Program Manager with the VA Pharmacy Benefits Management Clinical Pharmacy Practice Office, discusses integrating psychiatric pharmacist providers into the health care continuum to better serve patients' mental health needs.

Tera Moore, PharmD: Key strategies that we’ve learned that have been very successful, is the first step is identifying all those stakeholders, from not only the mental health leadership and pharmacy leadership, but the other disciplines that are part of that mental healthcare team. Once you’ve done that, everybody identifying ‘what are those gaps in care.’ Is it a shortage in mental health prescribers? Do you need integration into the primary care setting? Those are all things to consider. And then you identify where, providing the comprehensive medication management, where is the psychiatric pharmacist provider going to be best utilized in those practice areas. Once that’s identified, also looking at the space that they’re going to be practicing. Ideally they are co-located with the other team members in the mental health treatment team. And thinking outside the box as far as the modalities of care—does all the care need to be face-to-face, or could there be other avenues such as virtual or telephone care provided?