Integrated Care Teams: Roles and Responsibilities, Part 2

  • integrated care team pharmacist

The previous blog on Integrated Care Teams details the roles and responsibilities of Integrated Care Team (ICT) members who always work with customer-owners on their panel. However, ICTs are flexible, and other health care providers can be added to the care team as they are needed.

Integrated Care Teams: Roles and Responsibilities

Other members that can be added to care teams are a dietitian, pharmacist, and behavioral health consultant. Following is a brief overview of the roles and responsibilities of each team member.

Dietitian

The Dietician consults with customer-owners both in-person and by phone, offering assistance with healthy dietary choices, and with acute or chronic conditions which are manageable wholly or in part through diet. The Dietician also consults with the primary care team for ongoing customer-owner conditions, and provides support through various programs and classes.

Pharmacist

Integrated Pharmacists offer consultation and education to the care team on evidence-based cost-effective medication usage. They meet with ICT members before and after customer-owner visits, and meet directly with customer-owners who have complex medication needs. They also help with population-based panel management, with the goal of improving medication usage for complex chronic conditions.

Read: Integrated Care Teams: Roles and Responsibilities, Part 1

Behavioral Health Consultant

The Behavioral Health Consultant (BHC) offers consultation and education on behavioral needs to providers and case managers. The BHC also meets with customer-owners in the primary care clinic on an as-needed basis, providing screening, assessment, brief interventions, education, and follow-up. They also consult with specialists and refer customer-owners for longer-term therapeutic interventions as needed.

Working with Integrated Care Teams

These providers, as well as others such as integrated midwives, work with ICTs when customer-owners need their services. For complex cases, care conferences can be held with these and other providers to discuss customer-owner health issues and treatment options.

Training and Support

SCF provides training and support for ICT members and other providers to help them develop the communication and teamwork skills they need to work together effectively. For example, SCF’s Core Concepts training, offered to all employees, teaches methods for good dialogue and productive conversations, as well as how to share and receive story, which helps greatly in understanding customer-owners and their health needs. Other trainings, such as 5 Dynamics, are focused on team-building and working together effectively.

For information about these trainings, or ICTs and how they operate, contact the SCF Learning Institute today!