Evaluation of the Medical Psychiatry Alliance Senior's Outpatient Collaborative Care Project

Literature suggests seniors with co-existing mental and physical health concerns encounter challenges with accessing care including limited availability of geriatric specialists, inadequate navigational support, disjointed communication, and limited provider knowledge/ capacity to manage these complex patients. In conjunction with primary care, a new program was created to assist in addressing these concerns. A novel collaborative care model was developed integrating Geriatric Medicine and Geriatric Psychiatry anchored in primary care, where primary care remains the most responsible provider. Care managers (CMs) work with seniors in the community, for up to 16 weeks, who have at least one chronic health condition affecting function and depressed mood and/or anxiety. The care model focusses on 4 main components: integrated therapeutic care management, systematic case reviews (SCRs), integrated care planning, and education/capacity building. CMs provide comprehensive assessments, system navigation, monitoring using symptom rating scales, and a problem solving psychotherapy for seniors using reward exposure to form action plans (ENGAGE). CMs present cases weekly at SCRs, where the team includes a geriatrician, geriatric psychiatrist, primary care, and allied health. Recommendations are made then sent to the PCP for implementation. In the current evaluation study we will compare levels of depression, anxiety and functioning of seniors receiving the collaborative care model with those receiving a one time mood consultation.