| Member Spotlight:
Patricia Cunningham, PMHNP is a certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner who has 16 years experience as an advanced practice nurse in different models of integrated care where psychiatric and medical care are both offered to the patient in one clinic. For the first 6 years Patricia provided psychiatric care in a clinic established for serious and persistently mentally ill at the University of Rochester, where a primary care provider was embedded in the mental health clinic. The following 8 years Patricia was the embedded psychiatric provider in a VA primary care clinic. More recently Patricia has provided psychiatric services at Western North Carolina Community Health Services in Asheville, NC. In this clinic primary care and mental health services are collocated in the agency and share electronic records but are separated by building.
As she describes, integrated has benefits for both the patients and providers. Some benefits to providers include greater security in decisions as patients will be followed more closely, less fragmentation of care leading to better understanding impact of psychosocial problems on patients’ lives, and improved exchange of information through shared documentation. Patients benefit through the increased security, comfort, and trust that is fostered, as well as through the increased efficiency of not having to go to multiple agencies.
Patricia is active with the NCNA Psychiatric Mental Health Nurses in Advanced Practice (PMHN) Council and recently spoke on integrated care at the annual NCNA NP Spring Symposium in Asheville, NC.
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