B03 – Is PCBH and Employee Engagement really like Oil and Water? A System’s Journey to Achieve Both

Summary

The integration of behavioral health providers (BHPs) into primary care (PC) continues to proliferate and is fast becoming the expectation in healthcare versus being an exception (NASEM, 2021). One such popular philosophy of integration is the Primary Care Behavioral Health (PCBH, Reiter et al, 2017) model that focuses on matching PC’s value of population-based health and productivity (Martin et al., 2021). However, with this increased focus on the fast-paced, productive PC environment, questions regarding burnout and engagement for these BHPs have been raised. Will BHCs be put at an increased risk of burnout in their attempts to help their PC counterparts? There has been a dearth of research regarding levels of employee engagement throughout PCBH systems and while there is support that team-based care may buffer burnout (Zubatsky, 2018), research has been established regarding the deleterious effects that high productivity, a staple of PCBH, can have on health care providers (Dillion et al., 2020). This presentation will be one of the first that demonstrates two concepts that may be seen as either/or and opposites (i.e., PCBH and employee engagement), can very well happen simultaneously when done with intentionality. Specifically, the presentation will detail Community Health of Central Washington’s four-year journey of achieving high fidelity to the PCBH model, including high productivity amongst its BHPs, as well as the highest employee engagement scores out of any department within the health center. The presenters will describe evidenced-informed initiatives and interventions (Deao, 2017; Studer, 2013) taken to increase employee engagement from the BHP team. Additionally, quantitative and qualitative data will be presented that details employee engagement metrics and the relationship to PCBH fidelity data.