Researchers compared 176 PCPs volunteers for PT training with random sample of 200 PCPs; Photo: Syda Productions | DPC

FROM Psychiatric News Alert: A New York state initiative to provide psychiatric consultation to pediatric primary care providers about prescribing psychotropic medication shows promise for enhancing providers’ comfort with prescribing, according to the report “Detection and Treatment of Mental Health Issues by Pediatric PCPs in New York State: An Evaluation of Project TEACH” published online in Psychiatric Services in Advance.

Researchers in the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine and colleagues at other institutions evaluated Project TEACH (PT), a statewide training and consultation program for pediatric primary care providers (PCPs) on identification and treatment of mental health conditions. The project is part of a collaboration between the REACH Institute (Resource for Advancing Children’s Health) and five academic departments of psychiatry. The curriculum consists of 15 hours of in-person training, a tool kit, and Web-based learning tools, along with a six-month distance learning program that includes 12 one-hour consultation calls with child psychiatrists.

“Our findings suggest potential benefits of training PCPs to identify and treat children’s mental health conditions. Provider training and consultation may be a meaningful way to help reduce the number of children who do not receive treatment for mental health conditions, but further research is necessary to determine whether this type of model will be useful as the responsibility for mental health care and outcomes shifts under health care reform.”

For more about this program, see the Psychiatric News article, “New York Child Psychiatry Divisions Fill Gap in Collaborative Care Model.”