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. 2021 Apr;57(3):405-415.
doi: 10.1007/s10597-020-00662-z. Epub 2020 Jun 19.

Community Mental Health Care Delivery During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Practical Strategies for Improving Care for People with Serious Mental Illness

Sarah L Kopelovich  1 , Maria Monroe-DeVita  2 , Benjamin E Buck  2 , Carolyn Brenner  2 , Lorna Moser  3 , L Fredrik Jarskog  4 , Steve Harker  5 , Lydia A Chwastiak  2
Affiliations

Community Mental Health Care Delivery During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Practical Strategies for Improving Care for People with Serious Mental Illness

Sarah L Kopelovich et al. Community Ment Health J. 2021 Apr.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a formidable challenge to care continuity for community mental health clients with serious mental illness and for providers who have had to quickly pivot the modes of delivering critical services. Despite these challenges, many of the changes implemented during the pandemic can and should be maintained. These include offering a spectrum of options for remote and in-person care, greater integration of behavioral and physical healthcare, prevention of viral exposure, increased collaborative decision-making related to long-acting injectable and clozapine use, modifying safety plans and psychiatric advance directives to include new technologies and broader support systems, leveraging natural supports, and integration of digital health interventions. This paper represents the authors' collaborative attempt to both reflect the changes to clinical practice we have observed in CMHCs across the US during this pandemic and to suggest how these changes can align with best practices identified in the empirical literature.

Keywords: Behavioral health treatment delivery; COVID-19 pandemic; Community mental health; Serious mental illness; e-Mental health.

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Conflict of interest statement

In the past 3 years, Dr. Jarskog has received research grant funding from Auspex/Teva, Boehringer-Ingelheim, and Otsuka; he has served as a consultant to UpToDate and Bracket. No other authors have conflicts of interest to disclose. All authors certify responsibility for the content of this article. This work does report on research involving human participants or animal subjects and did not require ethical approval from an Institutional Review Board.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Continuum of service delivery modes for CMHC clients
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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