In 2019, Aurora, Colo.-based UCHealth made a $150 million investment in behavioral health. The initiative aimed to build capacity across its continuum of care — inpatient, outpatient, crisis services, virtual care and primary care integration — with the goal of delivering the right care at the right time, Elicia Bunch, vice president of behavioral health, told Becker’s.
“UCHealth had the vision and commitment to invest in what they saw as a growing need in our state with regard to behavioral health conditions and associated treatment,” she said. “[UCHealth] was really ahead of the curve in identifying this as a need in Colorado and making this tremendous investment.”
Since the investment, the system has served 188,000 behavioral health patients. It added a 40-bed inpatient behavioral health unit at Aurora-based University of Colorado Hospital and a 50-bed unit at Fort Collins, Colo.-based Poudre Valley Hospital. UCHealth has also integrated behavioral health services into more than 60 primary care clinics.
Many Colorado communities are designated mental health professional shortage areas. Even in urban spaces, it can be difficult to find a behavioral health provider, Ms. Bunch said. The system’s leaders had a growing awareness of how frequently behavioral health conditions presented alongside physical health needs. Disorders such as anxiety, depression, substance use and trauma are commonly interlinked with chronic medical conditions, she said.
“The goal is ensuring we’re connecting folks early to the right level of care earlier in their care journey with the goal of avoiding hospitalization when possible,” Ms. Bunch said, highlighting inpatient care and the effort to build out the full continuum rather than just one service.
That effort includes interventional psychiatry. UCHealth has opened three behavioral health specialty clinics offering electroconvulsive therapy, esketamine and transcranial magnetic stimulation to treat major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder and other behavioral health diagnoses.
The system is working to address the whole person through behavioral health integration and to break down barriers to those services, including stigma. Ms. Bunch said when primary care providers — who have established relationships with patients — refer them to behavioral health providers within the same clinic, it helps normalize those conversations.
The virtual behavioral health group therapy program provides outpatient services and specialty groups for depression and anxiety, grief and trauma, and co-occurring conditions. The system has served 1,400 patients through the program.
UCHealth also partners with nine law enforcement agencies. More than 85% of 14,000 behavioral health calls have been resolved without arrest or emergency department visits. Ms. Bunch said this reflects the reality that behavioral health crises are fundamentally health issues.
Although the program has shown results, she said models such as these need payer support to be sustainable long term, including for crisis response, mobile services and follow-up care.
The system will continue to track metrics such as access, care coordination, continuity, patient experience, and provider and clinician experience.
“We definitely measure return on investment using sort of a broader lens than just traditional volume metrics,” she said. “The real return that we’re looking for is helping people get the necessary care they need.”
