Wellness Works: Lighthouse Psychiatry Gilbert, AZ

Trinh says it’s one of the reasons his clinic has decided to change its paradigm of treatment and focus more on a team approach to helping mental illness sufferers.
 
“I think the most important aspect of mental health care, from the standpoint of treatment, is partnership,” he notes. “It’s been one of the most exciting developments in recent years in the Arizona mental health market. And that’s because care providers have come to the realization that the best way to help their patients is through a custom-tailored plan that’s based in partnering. With a greater need in mind, our strategy of treatment has really pivoted to be much more community-focused.”
 
Trinh says one of the big challenges in the past was a disconnect among the various treatment resources, and that allowed a lot of mental health patients to fall through the cracks.

“I think there’s been a lot of individuals who’ve embraced the need to create relationships to create a robust network that’s designed to ensure that those who need treatment can be identified and helped much earlier in the cycle,” he says.
 
One example he cites is how schools and hospitals are adopting educational programs that focus on raising mental health awareness and helping to reduce the stigma of mental illness that’s been prevalent for so long. Another development to help create more effective treatment is to provide what Trinh calls “wraparound” services that include multiple treatment modalities. 

“We’re aiming to create a far more integrated approach to care. So some of the modalities we’re implementing might include an M.D. who prescribes appropriate medications and works hand-in-hand with a therapist focused on identifying and applying coping skills and mechanisms for sufferers. Add to that a focus on family dynamics and blending them with cutting-edge technologies like TMS [transcranial magnetic stimulation], and that really raises the bar on the comprehensive nature of treatment currently available to mental health patients.”
 
“Regardless of the range that these cover, it’s all about finding resource alignment that leads to coordinated care. That’s the way you’re going to make a difference in these people’s lives,” he says.

Buttressing the philosophical changes in the nature of treatment, government policy is also helping to make strides in mental health. 
 
“Arizona has made mental health awareness and treatment a major priority. From both an emerging treatment and a government perspective, we actually do better with mental health than a lot of other states in the country,” notes Dr. Don Fowls, president of the Arizona Psychiatric Society, a branch of the American Psychiatric Association, which represents and professionally advances the work of nearly 40,000 member psychiatrists throughout the U.S. 
 
Fowls agrees with Trinh that the opioid epidemic has radically altered the nature of illness and treatment in Arizona. “I think what’s changed over the past several years—what’s really affected the whole mental health universe—is the opioid substance abuse crisis, along with the increase in the rate of suicides, particularly among kids. It’s hit people at all levels of the economic spectrum.”
 
He points out that one of the many concrete and positive measures Arizona has enacted occurred when former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer took steps to support the expansion of Medicaid.

“It enabled a couple hundred thousand people in this state to get on the Medicaid rolls—people who didn’t have insurance previously,” Fowls notes.
 
In fact, he says that Arizona has established a pretty strong fiscal connection between behavioral health and Medicaid. As he explains, “Just in Maricopa County alone, there’s about $850 million in state and federal dollars that cover services for about 26,000 people. That’s really contributed to increased awareness and treatment of mental illness throughout the state.”
 
Fowls believes another reason Arizona is seeing enhanced mental health awareness from a policy standpoint is the fact that current Governor Doug Ducey has been such an active supporter of mental health advancements in the state.
 
“He really has a heart for this stuff,” Fowls says of Ducey. “He’s been a very, very strong supporter of mental health and substance abuse benefits. The Governor’s done a lot of work to try and get the entire community involved—the businesses, the schools, etc.—and make this more of a wholesale community issue rather than just a government issue. It’s been a huge driving force in the state’s attitude toward mental health.”