Learning Tracks

Introduction To Neurobiology & Psychopharmacology

After completing the Introduction to Neurobiology & Psychopharmacology Learning Track, participants should understand:

• The role of neurotransmitters in the pathophysiology for bipolar disorder, major depression, and schizophrenia
• The role of neurotransmitters in psychopharmacology
• The impact of neuroinflammation on psychiatric illness
• Treatment considerations for serious mental illness

Cognitive Function In Schizophrenia & Bipolar Disorder

After completing the Cognitive Function In Schizophrenia & Bipolar Disorder Learning Track, participants should have learned:

• The differences between cognitive functioning in schizophrenia compared with bipolar disorder
• The importance of brain changes throughout the course of illness for both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
• The incidence and functional consequences of neurocognitive deficits in bipolar disorder and schizophrenia
• The options to address impaired cognition and functioning

Early Intervention In Psychosis

After completing the Early Intervention In Psychosis Learning Track, participants should have learned:

• The potential barriers to reducing the duration of untreated psychosis
• The medical rationale for early intervention in psychosis
• Four early intervention programs and their findings
• Potential ways to implement early intervention programs in mental health settings

Suicide Awareness & Prevention

After completing the Suicide Awareness & Prevention Learning Track, participants should understand:

• Current statistics on suicide in the general U.S. population: including among individuals living with serious mental illness and within Veteran populations
• Suicide risk factors and protective factors
• Treatment strategies to address suicide risk and rates, including screening
• The role health care providers can play in bereavement and postvention activities
• Best practices in media reporting on suicide

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the Suicide Prevention Hotline / Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255); or text the Crisis Text Line at 741-741.

Telepsychiatry

After completing the Telepsychiatry Learning Track, participants should understand:

• Current challenges to mental health service access and the role that telepsychiatry may play to address them
• Ongoing policy changes impacting telepsychiatry’s adoption, implementation, and reimbursement
• Available options to deliver telepsychiatric, telemental health, and telehealth services
• Potential benefits and limitations related to the clinical practice of telepsychiatry
• The importance of consumer experience to telepsychiatric care

Value-Based Reimbursement

After completing the Value-Based Reimbursement Learning Track, participants should understand:

• The key drivers behind the shift toward more value-based care / reimbursement in mental health
• The role VBR can play in improving quality and lowering costs in the health care system
• Health plan perspectives on valuable provider partnerships under VBR models
• Adoption rates of a variety of VBR models throughout the health care and mental health systems

Social Determinants Of Health

After completing the Social Determinants Of Health Learning Track, participants should understand:

• How social determinants of health are defined
• The impact social determinants of health can have on population health outcomes
• Policies and regulations that may prevent social determinants of health from being addressed through the health care system
• The ways that provider and payer organizations are attempting to address them

Care Coordination & Integration

After completing the Care Coordination & Integration Learning Track participants should have learned:

• Barriers to and strategies for integrated behavioral and medical health care.
• The definition of Transitions of Care and how to identify all members of the health care team.
• Traditional care transition programs.
• Care coordination recommendations, specific to the mental health population, including: optimizing medication regimen, communication of complex medical plans, and screening for other co-occurring conditions.
• How the discharge care team collaboratively develops a comprehensive transition planning guide with the patient and family.

Peer Support

After completing the Peer Support Learning Track, participants should understand:

• What peer support specialists are and how they are certified
• The potential benefits of incorporating peer support specialists into teams treating individuals with mental health and substance use disorders
• Barriers and challenges that still exist to fully integrating peer support specialists into organizational, service delivery, and reimbursement models

Quality In Mental Health

After completing the Quality In Mental Health Learning Track, participants should understand:

• The growing importance of value-based care in behavioral health
• Current behavioral health quality measures
• Providers’, and payers’, roles in quality improvement
• Strategies that the behavioral health field is employing to address and improve quality, including customer-oriented continuous quality improvement processes

Measurement-Based Care

After completing the Measurement-Based Care (MBC) Learning Track, participants should have learned:

• The importance of using measurement-based care, both generally and specifically with patients who have major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder.
• How implementation of MBC can improve outcomes in clinical settings.
• The connection between residual symptoms, lack of full remission, and issues with functional outcomes, and the importance of these facts when assessing patients.
• The different scales which can be used with patients with major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder.

Patient Engagement

After completing the Patient Engagement Learning Track, participants should understand:

• The concepts of patient engagement, patient activation, and shared decision making
• The importance of patient empowerment in improving health care and quality outcomes
• The roles that both providers and patients can fill in the shared decision making process
• A variety of approaches to engage or activate patients in their mental health care

Population Health & Data Analytics

After completing the Population Health & Data Analytics Learning Track, participants should understand:

• How organizations can identify consumers that may benefit from more intensive care coordination
• The role of population health initiatives in managing cost and quality of care for complex consumers
• The interplay of policy, legislation, social determinants, and other underlying factors that impact population health outcomes
• How organizations are harnessing technology to capture and analyze data for decision support