Redesigning the Us Mental Health Care System

One in five adults and one in six youth experience a mental health illness within a year. These common conditions are often managed within complex public and private care provision structures that are fragmented, siloed and difficult to navigate. These problems have become increasingly evident to stakeholders and policy makers, such that several states have started to modernize and improve their mental health care facilities and infrastructure. However, there are no guidelines for these efforts, meaning each group tends to tackle these problems in different ways.

Redesigning the US Mental Health Care System brings together an array of experts working to spark lasting change in mental health care systems across the United States. Chapters explore how facility redesigns, accessibility of funding, technological advances, and other strategies can work in tandem to optimize the process of delivering services to people in need. By spotlighting these efforts to implement necessary changes--as well as providing real-life experiences from users and practitioners within these systems--Redesigning the US Mental Health Care System creates a vision of a unified continuum of care designed to serve people at the right time and in the right place.

Sydney S. Harris, MHA holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Ball State University and a master’s degree in health care administration from Texas Women’s University. She has over 15 years of experience in mental health care business operations in the private and public sectors. Sydney focuses on system changes to destigmatize mental healthcare, improve person first and centered care, and connecting the head to the body for a full person mental healthcare approach.

Stephen M. Strakowski, MD serves as Associate Vice President, Regional Mental Health and Professor of Psychiatry at the Dell Medical School, University of Texas in Austin. He is Professor and Vice-Chair, Research in the Department of Psychiatry at the IU School of Medicine in Indianapolis. He focuses on providing strategic guidance regarding psychiatric clinical and policy best practices, including mental health care clinical programming, integration with the criminal legal system, and innovative care models. Dr. Strakowski graduated from University of Notre Dame with a BSE and received his MD from Vanderbilt. He completed psychiatry training in the Harvard system at McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA.