Board of Trustees Ad Hoc Work Group on Improving Access to Psychiatric Care

Charge: To assess what the APA can do to further improve access to psychiatric care.

The Ad Hoc Work Group will :

1. Review the history of access to psychiatric care and provide an update on legislative strategies directed to federal and state governments with respect to access to psychiatric care.
2. Inventory all current APA activities geared to improving access to psychiatric care.
3. Recommend actions and/or reorganization of existing initiatives directed to improving access to psychiatric care.
4. Recommend actions geared to decrease the financial barriers to access to psychiatric care (e.g., managed care).
5. Recommend actions to decrease non-financial barriers to access to psychiatric care (e.g., public education related to awareness of mental illness and decrease of stigma against mental illness).
6. Assess work force issues, including the use of telepsychiatry and the delivery of psychiatric services by primary care specialists.
7. Recommend actions to reduce disparities in access to psychiatric care, including suggestions to improve cultural competence of psychiatrists as well as overcoming geographical barriers to access to psychiatric care.
8. Recommend actions to collaborate with patient’s families and other mental health advocacy organizations to create partnerships regarding access to psychiatric care.
9. Recommend standards to measure the level of access to psychiatric care and to insure availability of psychiatrists on a twenty-four hour a day, seven day a week basis for patients in need of psychiatric care.
10. Design an appropriate system of care geared to providing universal access to psychiatric care.
11. Will work with APA divisions, departments and components, as appropriate, within the context of each division’s/department’s mission and each component’s charge to improve access to psychiatric care.

Estimated cost: up to $10,000

Source of funding: _______________________