Pediatric Mental Health Care Access Program

Description

This notice solicits applications for the Pediatric Mental Health Care Access Program. The purpose of the Pediatric Mental Health Care Access Program is to promote behavioral health integration into pediatric primary care by supporting pediatric mental health care telehealth access programs. State or regional networks of pediatric mental health care teams will provide tele-consultation, training, technical assistance, and care coordination for pediatric primary care providers to diagnose, treat and refer children with behavioral health conditions. For purposes of this funding opportunity, telehealth is defined as the use of electronic information and telecommunication technologies to support and promote long-distance clinical consultation, patient and professional health-related education, public health and health administration. Permitted telehealth modalities between providers include (but are not limited to): real-time video, telephonic communications, store and forward of images and mobile health (mHealth) applications. For purposes of this funding opportunity, a pediatric mental health care telehealth access program for which funding may be used, shall— A. be a statewide or regional network of pediatric mental health care teams that provide support to pediatric primary care sites as an integrated team; B. support and further develop organized state or regional networks of pediatric mental health care teams to provide consultative support to pediatric primary care sites; C. conduct an assessment of critical behavioral consultation needs among pediatric providers and such providers’ preferred mechanisms for receiving consultation, training, and technical assistance; D. develop an online database and communication mechanism, including telehealth, to facilitate consultation support to pediatric primary care practices; E. provide rapid statewide or regional clinical telephone or telehealth consultations when requested between the pediatric mental health care teams and pediatric primary care providers; F. conduct training and provide technical assistance to pediatric primary care providers to support the early identification, diagnosis, treatment, and referral of children with behavioral health conditions; G. provide information to pediatric providers and assist pediatric providers in accessing, pediatric mental health care providers, including child and adolescent psychiatrists, and licensed mental health professionals, such as psychologists, social workers, or mental health counselors and in scheduling and conducting technical assistance; H. assist with referrals to specialty care and community or behavioral health resources; and I. establish mechanisms for measuring and monitoring increased access to pediatric mental health care services by pediatric primary care providers and expanded capacity of pediatric primary care providers to identify, treat, and refer children with mental health problems. You must describe how your project will support the development of new or the improvement of existing statewide or regional pediatric mental health care telehealth access programs, thereby facilitating access to and availability of telehealth (including by telephone) psychiatric consultation and care coordination to pediatricians and other pediatric primary care providers. You must also describe how your project will provide training and education on the use of evidence-based, culturally and linguistically appropriate telehealth protocols to support the treatment of children and adolescents with behavioral disorders. The program will support telehealth consultation with a pediatric behavioral clinician on the team and referral to a local pediatric behavioral clinician, to the extent possible. This program will serve as a resource for pediatric primary care providers serving children and adolescents, including, but not limited to, pediatricians, family physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and care coordinators.

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