Welcome to our new Post-Doc - Lisa Watts Natkin

Lisa Watts Natkin, PhD is the IBH-PC project's new Post-Doctoral Research Fellow coordinating the collection, analysis, and management of qualitative data. She will help plan and conduct site visits and interviews, review project documents, code qualitative data, conduct thematic analyses, and support manuscript preparation. Recently, Lisa completed her PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Vermont (UVM). Her dissertation research explored student learning and teaching practices related to UVM’s new sustainability general education requirement. Findings are published in a peer-reviewed article. During her master’s degree, she helped to evaluate a program designed to motivate Brookfield Zoo members to participate in conservation behavior. The Teton Science Schools hired her to evaluate the effectiveness of their graduate program. During her doctoral program, Lisa evaluated the Sustainability Faculty Fellows (SFF) program, which seeks to develop a learning community among a multidisciplinary faculty cohort. Evaluation findings were published in two peer-reviewed journal articles. For the past two years, Lisa has been an evaluator working with Evergreen Evaluation & Consulting, Inc.  She supported several U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Program grant funded programs. She assisted clients with instrumentation development, conducting interviews, collecting data, analyzing data, and writing reports. Lisa lives in Hinesburg with her husband, 3-year-old son, and dog.  

We are really excited to have her on the team!

- Ben Littenberg

New book by Roger Kathol

Roger Kathol, who is a leader in Integrated Behavioral Health with a special focus on Case Management (and a consultant to our project), has just released the second edition of The Integrated Case Management Manual. Published by Springer. Highly recommended.

-Ben Littenberg

New research om warm handoffs

Warm handoffs are often recommended as a great way to get patients who need Behavioral Health services from the Primary Care Provider to the Behavioral Health Provider. Not only are they in our IBH-PC toolkit, they are one of my favorite tools. They have great face validity, and in my experience, they work extremely well. So, I was quite surprised to see this recent report.

Warm Handoffs and Attendance at Initial Integrated Behavioral Health Appointments

1. Christine A. Pace, MD, MSc1⇑, 
2. Katherine Gergen-Barnett, MD2, 
3. Alysa Veidis, RN, MSN, NP-BC3, 
4. Joanna D’Afflitti, MD, MPH1, 
5. Jason Worcester, MD1,
6. Pedro Fernandez, MD4 and 
7. Karen E. Lasser, MD, MPH1

+Author Affiliations

1. 1Section of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts
2. 2Department of Family Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts
3. 3Commonwealth Care Alliance, Boston, Massachusetts
4. 4Department of Psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern, Dallas, Texas

1. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR: Christine Pace, MD, MSc, 801 Massachusetts Ave, 2nd Floor, Boston, MA 02117, Christine.pace@bmc.org

Abstract

Though integrated behavioral health programs often encourage primary care physicians to refer patients by means of a personal introduction (warm handoff), data are limited regarding the benefits of warm handoffs. We conducted a retrospective study of adult primary care patients referred to behavioral health clinicians in an urban, safety-net hospital to investigate the association between warm handoffs and attendance rates at subsequent initial behavioral health appointments. In multivariable analyses, patients referred via warm handoffs were not more likely to attend initial appointments (OR = 0.96; 95% CI, 0.79-1.18; P = .71). A prospective study is necessary to confirm the role of warm handoffs.

As the authors note, this is a retrospective analysis that is subject to unmeasured confounding, so a more complete story awaits an RCT. The article can be found online here.

- Ben Littenberg