I recently got an email from a Community Mental Health director asking me what I thought a program should address when designing a proposal for a pilot project to demonstrate the integration of physical and mental health services.  My very short response to this big question went like this:

We seem to have a rare opportunity to step back and ask ourselves how a public mental health service would be constructed if we were starting from day one.  I would begin by trying to understand who the service recipients are and what they want.  I'm no marketing guru, but I think people want the same thing from MH services as they want from other goods and services:  convenience, reliability, choice, good customer relations.

I also think that everyone needs a measure: how do we evaluate our success?  Care of chronic disease seems to be a focus of many health care reform discussions.  If we can diagnose an individual, provide them with the information and tools to manage their disorder and then provide clear feedback on how they are doing, we can minimize acute episodes and the cost associated with them, keep the person feeling reasonably good and save bucks.  We can also use those measurements to demonstrate the overall effectiveness of the service which supports future investment in the service.