GNYHA hosted teams of nurses, physicians, and quality managers from 20 hospitals on February 27 for a Maternal Depression Learning Collaborative conference. Formed in February 2016 as part of the ThriveNYC program, the Collaborative helps member hospitals implement screening protocols for mothers in the prenatal and postpartum settings, and connects the mothers who screen positive to effective treatment. The Collaborative now comprises more than 50 individual practice sites, including obstetrics and gynecology, family health, and pediatric clinics across New York City, the Lower Hudson Valley, and Long Island.
Jared Bosk, Vice President, GNYHA Health Economics and Outcomes Research, reviewed Collaborative participants’ progress submitting data and ways to more accurately collect it. GNYHA collects non-personal health information data to help sites track their progress toward meeting their screening and treatment goals.
New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Executive Deputy Commissioner Gary Belkin, MD, PhD, MPH, discussed “task shifting,” a method to address behavioral health needs in low-resource areas by training care team members outside of traditional behavioral health roles to be part of the maternal depression intervention approach.
Representatives from NYC H+H Bellevue, one of the Collaborative teams, presented their challenges and successes in implementing screening and connection to treatment in the ambulatory obstetric setting. CUNY Center for Innovation in Mental Health representatives Virna Little and Eunice Kim led discussions about developing effective workflows and coding and billing. CUNY is the Collaborative’s research and evaluation arm, and provides coaching to Collaborative teams.
Representatives from six different insurance plans discussed billing and reimbursement, behavioral health and care management programs available to pregnant and postpartum mothers, and data.
For more information about the Maternal Depression Learning Collaborative, please contact Alison Burke, Sarah Lewis, or Jared Bosk.