Tackling Mental Health Through A Connected Network
- 2018-11-02
- OZY
Most emergency rooms are designed to treat physical traumas. But many are also poorly adapted to treat mental health traumas and crises — two issues that are on the rise in Tennessee.
Indeed, Tennessee consistently ranks in the top five U.S. states when it comes to substance abuse. And according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health: However, Tennessee has worked hard to create a collaborative, multi-pronged crisis response system.
Mental health and substance abuse issues are often ineffectively siloed from one another. “The prevalence of mental health co-occurring with addiction is huge, so we definitely need treatment offerings that address both simultaneously,” says Marshall Moncrief, regional executive director of the Institute for Mental Health for Providence St. Joseph Health. Due to the complicated nature of the mental health crisis and the rapidly growing need for all kinds of services, the state is trying something new to tackle the opioid problem — the Tennessee Recovery Navigators.