Wrap-Up: Digging Deeper: Renewing the Primary Care Commitment to Mental Health

In this video, Josh Hamilton, APRN-BC, CTMH, CLNC, CNE, provides an overview of the session “Digging Deeper: Renewing the Primary Care Commitment to Mental Health” at our Practical Updates in Primary Care 2023 Virtual Series, including integration of the whole-health mindset, collaboration, tools for measurement-based care, and more.

For more meeting coverage, visit the Practical Updates in Primary Care newsroom.

For more information about PUPC 2023 Virtual Series and to register for upcoming sessions, visit https://www.practicalupdates.consultant360.com/.

Josh Hamilton, APRN-BC, CTMH, CLNC, CNE, is a doctor of nursing practice, family nurse practitioner, and psychiatric nurse practitioner with The Hamilton Group Behavioral Health (Las Vegas, NV).

TRANSCRIPTION:

Dr Josh Hamilton: Hi, Josh Hamilton here. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you for attending this year's Practical Updates in Primary Care conference, and for having a look at our session on mental health in primary care. We hope you enjoyed the conversation and we were able to glean some pearls and techniques and some take-home ideas that will help make this an easier and more approachable task for all of us in primary care. I hope you enjoyed our conversation about the whole health mindset and different ideas about integration and collaboration and doing that within your comfort zone and within your particular scope of practice. And I hope we were able to demystify and take some of the threatening preconceptions that I think we all share about the diagnostic and statistical manual away so that you feel like that's more approachable and navigable for you.

I hope we gave you some good ideas about how to optimize your workflows and your EHR and how to really create that culture of mental health that is as simple as hanging up a poster or putting some literature in your lobby and really working as a team so that everyone who touches on a corner of a patient journey really understands and speaks that language and offers that supportive care and culture that we're looking for. I hope we were able to empower you with some ideas and some tools about measurement-based care and different screening tools and psychometrics that you could use immediately, and I think we had a great conversation about why it's important to revisit and emphasize the relationship. And that even though we're all fatigued, I mean certainly the pandemic has taken the wind out of many of our sails, but it's time to revisit that and to appreciate that as a tool unto itself to really foster and help shore up that neurobiological restructuring of neuroplasticity. That's so important even in eight to 10-minute doses, which is what we're able to provide for the most part in primary care.

I hope these ideas and this conversation have allowed you to really play to your strengths and to develop a new appreciation for your skills and empowerment to co-manage some things that maybe you have been hesitant to touch in the past while still recognizing red flags and evolving presentations so you know when to collaborate and when to refer, and when to take a deep breath of your own and ask a few more questions, especially if a patient expresses some unsafe thoughts or some suicidal ideation. We had a great conversation about that.

And finally, I know it's important to all of us, hold that mirror up and take heart, really take care of yourself, recognize your limits, and practice some self-care. So, I hope it was helpful for you. I hope you enjoyed having the conversation. We really enjoyed interacting with you. We hope you enjoyed the conference in general, and we thank you again for being there. Take good care of yourselves. Bye now.