Leaders of the new professional learning community on primary and mental health integrative
care are, from left: Sandy Root-Elledge, executive director, Wyoming Institute for
Disabilities (WIND); Mary Burman, a professor in UW’s Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing;
Canyon Hardesty, director of community education in WIND; and Nancy McGee, a clinical
assistant professor in UW’s Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing. (UW Photo)
The Wyoming Institute for Disabilities (WIND) and the Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing
in the University of Wyoming’s College of Health Sciences have partnered to launch
a new online professional learning community, UW ECHO for Integrative Care: Primary
Care and Mental Health.
This new network will provide structure and guidance to better equip primary care
physicians and other health care professionals throughout Wyoming to more effectively
identify and treat mental and behavioral health issues in rural, underserved communities.
The integrative care network will use the ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) model, with Zoom videoconferencing technology,
to enable health care professionals to participate statewide. WIND successfully integrated
this model for use in health, education and family support training networks.
UW ECHO for Integrative Care was launched last month. Nancy McGee and J’Laine Proctor,
clinical assistant professors in the psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner
concentration of the Doctor of Nursing Practice Program in the UW School of Nursing,
presented models of integrative care. Integrative care is the result of a team of
primary care and behavioral health clinicians working together using a systematic
approach to provide patient-centered care.
“Integrating mental health services and primary care is critical in Wyoming, given
the significant unmet needs related to mental illness and substance abuse disorders,”
McGee says. “This ECHO project is one aspect of the School of Nursing’s efforts to
address these needs.”
The ECHO sessions provide the opportunity to present both individual and programmatic
case scenarios that represent challenges to patient care involving behavioral health.
Working within the network, cases can be reviewed by primary care physicians, nurse
practitioners and social workers to identify how patient care can be delivered more
effectively.
The McMurry Foundation provided funding for the ECHO Integrative Care learning sessions
for a three-year period.
“We are so grateful to the McMurry Foundation for funding the ECHO for integrated
behavioral health care,” says School of Nursing Professor Mary Burman. “This allows
us to work with primary care and mental health clinicians from across the state as
we increase access to mental health services for all.”
“ECHO gives us the ability to not only hear and see you, but to talk directly with
you about your concerns and what you’d like to learn more about,” says Canyon Hardesty,
director of community education in WIND. “This way, we can all learn from one another.”
ECHO sessions will be provided every other week through May on Thursdays from noon-1
p.m. Sessions are open to individuals providing health care in Wyoming, including
physicians, nurse practitioners, social workers and mental health professionals.
For more information, visit www.uwyo.edu/wind/echo/mental-health/index.html.
