Sabina Lim, MD, senior vice president of behavioral health safety and quality and system medical director of regulatory and government affairs at New York City-based Mount Sinai Health System, spoke with Becker's about why value-based care has the potential to change how behavioral health fits into the larger healthcare system.
Note: These responses were lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: What are you most excited about?
Dr. Sabina Lim: I am cautiously optimistic about the opportunities for clinical integration and improvement in clinical outcomes for patients through value-based care. Those models can provide a real pathway to integrate and connect behavioral health providers both to each other and to the rest of the healthcare system.
One of the biggest issues facing behavioral healthcare is how fundamentally disconnected it is, not only from physical healthcare, but just as much — or even moreso — between different types of behavioral health providers. This is in large part due to the many different types of behavioral health services.
Part of the core work of value-based care must be to create a fluid continuum of care between behavioral health providers, and connect the different levels of care within behavioral health. At Mount Sinai we are literally building this continuum of care all in one location. The Mount Sinai Comprehensive Behavioral Health Center will open in 2023, and it will have a robust array of services all in one building.
It will include inpatient psychiatric and addictions care; short term crisis observation and residence beds; partial hospital and intensive outpatient programs; and fully integrated outpatient clinic services incorporating mental health, addictions and physical health services.
And because being in the same physical location does not necessarily mean patients can access all the services as needed in a seamless manner, we are also creating patient engagement teams that will work with patients to ensure connectivity and engagement to all the services there, as well as health and social services outside of the center.
We believe that the core concepts of this model—building a true continuum of care—can be replicated, even if the services are located in different physical locations.