The Hutchings Psychiatric Center, the first integrated mental health, primary care clinic at a state psychiatric hospital, has opened in Syracuse. The clinic is also open to the general community according to State Mental Health Commissioner Ann Sullivan.
"This facility will serve both to make sure individuals with serious mental illness get medical care when they need it," Sullivan said. "And also individuals coming for medical care, if they happen to have a problem like depression or anxiety that that will get treated, and that will also enhance their physical health.”
She said the statistics about the physical health of mentally ill individuals are a matter of life and death.
"For the seriously mentally ill, that if their medical care is not good, we have a history of them dying ten to fifteen years earlier than the rest of the population,” Sullivan said.
Officials hope to make a dent in that number by offering primary care treatment in the same building individuals are getting mental health care. It’s not a new idea. Some private medical practices do this, but this is the first time a state psychiatric hospital will offer this care under one roof.
Hutchings Executive Director Mark Cattalani said the population treated at Hutchings often finds barriers to primary health care, and would find it easier to get treatment on both fronts in the same place.
“They’re much more comfortable coming here for their care period," he said. "They have anxieties about getting health elsewhere. Some of the places they might seek care, might have anxieties, sometimes called stigma -and I’m not disparaging anybody- but there’s discomfort, unfamiliarity with people who have severe mental illness, and that itself can become a barrier.”
It’s an integration of medical and mental health care, something that is the future of health care that's supported by the office of mental health and the governor's office. It’s supported by all the initiatives in Medicaid.
The new clinic on the Hutchings campus, and will be open to the general community as well. A pilot program reached 200 patients. Officials expect more than 1,000 people will access this combination-type clinic.
