The Importance of Behavioral Health Services in Urgent Care

Steve Adubato is joined by Donald Parker, President & CEO, Hackensack Meridian Health's Carrier Clinic, to discuss the innovative approach to providing behavioral health services at urgent care facilities.

1/18/2020 #123

Excerpt:

"Welcome to Think Tank. I'm Steve Adubato. We're honored to be joined, first time, on Think Tank, Donald Parker, President and CEO of HMH Carrier Clinic. Good to see you Don. Thanks Steve. Set that up. You and I have... sorry for interrupting. We have a lot of conversations about behavioral health. What is it? And why does it matter? You know, Steve, this is an encore career for me. This is my second time in behavioral health, sandwiched in healthcare, on the medical side. And I came back into behavioral health because I felt there was an enormous need. I mean, obviously, we see it playing out today in media, in our lives, in our communities. This is probably the... I would call it "the edgiest time" in my 68 years of living. What do you mean edgiest? Edgiest. There are so many influences on behavior today that are different than they've ever been before. So starting with the role of our phone that's in our... on our body somewhere. In our back pockets. So... Or sitting right here? Okay. Or sitting right here. Ready, so... What's up with that? We have to have it close to us? So... Is... that plays on us, doesn't it? Well, it's security. It's security. Because you gotta know. You gotta know what's happening with the people around you. You gotta know what's happening in the world. You gotta know what's happening with your business. And everybody expects you to be on top of that. All the time. So it's omnipresent. And... you know, it's interesting. I think that the communication that takes place in the phone is very very linear. And so it doesn't have the texture of body language, of eye contact, of all of the things that make communication effective. Take 65% of the communication value out, those things I just mentioned, and then have a conversation that has all the elements missing, it's not as valuable. It's not... it doesn't impact you as much. It doesn't have the same influence on you. And I don't think we figured out what taking that communication out really does does to us. But hold on one second. You use the term "behavioral health" right? Right. Is behavioral health and mental health the same thing? It is. We've coined the term behavioral health to take away from the stigma of mental health Steve. Still? Is it still there Don? Still stigmatized. You know, it's a hundred years, so it doesn't go away easily Steve. And it started in prohibition. We imputed willness to psychiatric behavior at that point in time. And it's continued. We believe people have the ability to say yes or no, to being... having mental health issues. And that's not the case. It's primarily genetic. Well HMH, Hackensack Meridian Health, is a funder..."