The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) has been awarded more than $2 million in federal grant money to equip and support primary care providers across the state to screen, diagnose, treat, and refer children with behavioral health conditions.
With the grant money, the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics, under an agreement with Arkansas Children’s, is developing a program called Children of Arkansas Mental Health in Primary Care (CHAMP).
The program’s primary goal is to promote the integration of behavioral health in pediatric primary care in Arkansas by linking primary care physicians around the state with a pediatric mental healthcare team for initial and ongoing education, consultation, and referral of patients who are under 18 and have behavioral health needs.
The pediatric mental healthcare team will consist of a child and adolescent psychiatrist, a pediatric psychologist, and a care manager. The team will work with a curriculum specialist and a diverse, interdisciplinary educational team to develop the curriculum and conduct sessions using a network-based learning and guided practice model for medical education.
“Pediatric mental and behavioral health is a pandemic in this country. With this large, four-year grant, UAMS and Arkansas Children’s can start to develop the best approaches to enable primary care providers to detect issues earlier and treat and refer more efficiently in order to make a real and lasting impact for society,” said William J. Steinbach, MD, chair of the Department of Pediatrics and associate dean for child health in the UAMS College of Medicine and pediatrician-in-chief at Arkansas Children’s.
Arkansas Children’s will serve as the program manager in collaboration with the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and the Arkansas Department of Health.
The Health Resources and Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently awarded the grant funds as part of its ongoing effort to help providers improve access to pediatric mental health services for people who are uninsured, isolated or medically vulnerable.
“This program will allow us to set up much-needed support for primary care providers around the state who are the first point of contact for many of these children,” said Chris E. Smith, MD, professor and vice chair for primary care in the UAMS College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics and medical director of primary care services at Arkansas Children’s. He will serve as principal investigator for this grant.
The initial group of providers targeted through CHAMP will be those in practices that are a part of the Arkansas Children’s Care Network (ACCN), which has 30 pediatric practices and 160 general pediatricians in its network and plans to add an additional 100 family practice providers around the state.
The CHAMP project will focus in its first year on building a foundation, including assembling and hiring staff, conducting a needs survey of providers in the network, conducting patient focus groups, designing curriculum for sessions and establishing a telehealth process.
The second year will focus on analysis of the program’s first year’s results and expansion to additional practices; the third year, consolidation and expansion; and the fourth year, sustainability, including expansion of the program to additional community providers.