Am J Psychiatry 1975; 132:1177-1181
Copyright © 1975 by American Psychiatric Association
The coordination of mental health services at the neighborhood level
JF Borus, LA Janowitch, F Kieffer, RG Morrill, L Reich, E Simone and L Towle
The neighborhood health center is becoming a major locus of mental health
care delivery. Because of their strategic position at the neighborhood
level, mental health care systems in the comprehensive health center locus
have been able to develop linkages with both general health and community
mental health systems to provide a broad continuum of coordinated health
and mental health care. Four models identified in a survey of 19
neighborhood mental health programs are described. The authors suggest that
persistent problems in coordination of care between neighborhood mental
health and other caregiving systems would be considerably alleviated by a
fiscal reimbursement scheme that rewarded integration rather than
fragmentation of care.
