Integrated Care Changes Lives
Each CUPS client has a different story, and each client needs a different kind of support. Even through the COVID-19 health crisis, CUPS is providing integrated community-based programs and services through technical means that meet the complex needs of low-income individuals and families. In this way, we break cycles of poverty and trauma and build lasting resilience.
What is integrated care?
Integrated Care combines primary health care, mental health care and human services in one setting. This is an important model of care for a number of reasons:
Primary care settings, like a doctor's office, provide about half of all mental health care for common psychiatric disorders.
Adults with serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders also have higher rates of chronic physical illnesses and die earlier than the general population.
People with common physical health conditions also have higher rates of mental health issues.
Human services, such as family development, housing subsidies, community connections, basic need referrals and advocacy play a key role in overall wellness.
It’s all connected
Providing Integrated Care helps patients and their providers. It blends the expertise of mental health, primary care clinicians, family development coaches and care coordinators with feedback from patients and their caregivers. This creates a team-based approach where mental health care, human services and general medical care are offered in the same setting, providing holistic support for the patient. Win-win.
What does integrated care look like at CUPS?
CUPS has developed an intake process and assessment tool that would ask the right questions, effectively identify the individual’s needs and enable the care coordinators to create the right integrated care strategy to most effectively help clients. That tool became known as the Integrated Care Tool.
The Integrated Care Tool has revolutionized the intake process for vulnerable individuals and families at CUPS. It was developed based on the science of the brain, as clients engage with CUPS, their progress is charted into four domains: Economic, Health, Development and Social-Emotional Resilience. The results are used to create a customized, integrated care plan, tailored to their unique needs. To capture the impact of this approach, outputs measure the “what” of a program, while outcomes measure the “why.” For example, when we say how many individuals were housed, this number is an output that does not give a holistic picture of the impact of our housing services. However, when we say what percentage of individuals were able to maintain housing, we are using an outcome to understand the success of the housing initiatives. Reporting outcomes demonstrate how programs and services have an impact in the lives of individuals and families.
Not only does this tool help CUPS provide effective care, but they are able to measure and report impact, and — most importantly — better able to break cycles of poverty and trauma and build lasting resilience.
Finally, and perhaps most exciting, is the potential of this tool to be used as a prototype for organizations across Canada, so we can all move forward together to bring lasting, impactful change to their communities. Amazing!
Interested in getting involved at CUPS? Click here.