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APA recommends integrated care training for psychiatry residents

New training recommendations emphasize the relevance of preparing psychiatrists for integrated behavioral health care, the American Psychiatric Association announced in a press release.

The report defines integrated behavioral health care as a patient-centered collaboration of primary care and behavioral health clinicians.

“We identified emerging integrated care models that are important for overall system change and therefore important to the world of education, because practitioners were going to need to develop a new set of skills, new ways of collaborating, new knowledge and new cultural values to be able to practice in these new models,” Richard Summers, MD, chairman of the APA’s Council of Medical Education and Lifelong Learning, said in the press release.

The report suggests a need for program changes across undergraduate, graduate and continuing medical education. According to the press release, some of the key recommendations include:

• Inter-specialty education to help physicians develop the attitudes and skills necessary for collaborative practice in all training programs;
• Early exposure to primary care settings that utilize effective integrated behavioral health in undergraduate training programs; and
• Faculty members with interest and experience in graduate medical education programs and behavioral care should teach and supervise residents and advocate for collaborative practice.

The recommendations will be sent to 219 general psychiatry training programs across the U.S. and Canada, and will be published in Academic Psychiatry, according to the press release.