VIDEO: Collaboration key to provide behavioral health services for homeless population

SAN FRANCISCO — Collaboration and communication between mental and physical health services is crucial to overcome logistics of providing proper care for homeless individuals in a large city, Carine Nzodom, MD, says in a Healio video.

Nzodom, a professor in the department of psychiatry and medical director of Homeless Behavioral Health Homeless Services for NYC Health and Hospitals, gave a talk on the subject of comprehensive care for the homeless at the American Psychiatric Association annual meeting.

In recent years, homelessness in New York City has reached levels not seen since the Great Depression, with 48,524 homeless people, including 15,087 homeless children, sleeping each night in New York’s main municipal shelter system as of March 2022.

Two-thirds of homeless New Yorkers have some form of mental health needs and roughly 17% have a severe mental illness. Compounded by the shrinking availability of inpatient psychiatric care in New York State, and lack of inpatient care access in New York City, there is limited coordination with community providers during a psychiatric admission, which in turn leads to increased homelessness, Nzodom said.

“The care collaboration would be the key factor in providing this work,” she said. “Taking care of patients comprehensively, collaborating with providers and stakeholders has been imperative in getting this work done.”