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SALT LAKE CITY — A group of health care experts released a master plan to address the Beehive State's growing behavioral health crisis on Thursday.
"This is really meant to serve as a guide for public (and) private sector stakeholders and systems that are seeking to improve behavioral health services in the state of Utah, both mental health services and substance use disorder services," said Laura Summers, director of industry research at the University of Utah Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.
While Utah leads the nation on many behavioral health innovations, the Utah Behavioral Health Coalition said interventions and reforms, high suicide rates, untreated anxiety and depression, serious mental illness and drug-related deaths point to the need for more "accessible, equitable, aligned and effective behavioral health services."
The coalition, under the direction of the Utah Hospital Association and the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, assessed the statewide issues and identified several key points to take action.
7 strategic priorities
The Behavioral Health Master Plan identifies seven strategic priorities, including:
- Support continued use, implementation, creation and innovation of evidence-based interventions.
- Strengthen behavioral health prevention and early intervention.
- Integrate physical and behavioral health.
- Improve patient, family and consumer navigation.
- Continue to build out Utah's behavioral health crisis and stabilization systems.
- Improve the availability of services and support for individuals with serious mental illnesses and complex behavioral health needs and their families.
- Expand, support and diversify Utah's behavioral health workforce.
"I have been tracking the development of the Behavioral Health Master Plan and appreciate the time and attention given by the Utah Hospital Association and so many others to bring it together," Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said in a statement. "As the plan highlights, behavioral health impacts all Utahns in one way or another — it's not just an issue for government or hospitals or community organizations to try to solve alone. I look forward to the organizations in our state working together to help the strategic priorities identified in the plan become Utah's reality."
Getting ahead of the growing demand for services
Over the last 50 years, Utah's population has grown significantly. At the same time, this spiking population has placed constraints on health care availability.
According to the report, Utah ranks 11th-highest among states in terms of the share of adults with any mental illness, third-highest for adults with serious mental illness and fourth-highest for adults with serious thoughts of suicide. Additionally, the share of young adults in Utah with poor mental health more than doubled in the last 10 years.
Data show nearly ½ of Utah adults and more than ½ of Utah youth do not receive necessary services or treatment for behavioral health issues. Furthermore, Utah has mental health provider shortages in every county and fewer mental health providers per 100,000 people than the national average.
Rebecca Dutson, president and CEO at the Children's Center Utah, said it is critical to focus on youth mental health to help Utah get ahead of the growing demand for behavioral health services.
"Stemming the needs downstream really is a strategic solution and (considering) the full continuum of care and the coordination of our very youngest across that lifespan is important," Dutson said. "People want hope. They want to know that they can have better health (and) that they can recover. That their families can have a better lived experience."
Fixing system fragmentation
A major focus of the master plan involves creating more system-level coordination between public and private-sector health care providers and payers to address behavioral health needs. Ross Van Vranken, executive director at the Huntsman Mental Health Institute, affirmed, saying collaborative care is one of the best-studied and best practices for doing so.
"Collaborative care ... really means you're going to embed therapists in the clinic with primary care and that team and they're actually part of that team," he said.
Another crucial piece of collaborative care, Van Vranken added, is screening patients for things like depression and substance use disorder to better manage treatment in the clinical setting.
"What we need to do as a state is provide resources, support, training and technology to help some of the smaller primary care providers actually engage in some kinds of collaborative care," he said.
What will change for Utahns?
Once the master plan is implemented, Utahns should expect the general quality of behavioral health care to improve, according to the report released Thursday.
"I think you'll have better access to treatment (and) I think they'll have better care when they access that treatment," said Brandon Hatch, CEO at Davis Behavioral Health.
Essentially, the goal is for people to be treated in the right place and at the right time, when it comes to behavioral health. This, Hatch said, should lead to very positive outcomes for Utahns.
"We are starting to really accelerate already in moving this work forward," he said. "I think people will be healthier and hopefully we will see suicide rates go down and the availability of access to services go up."
