Technologies for the delivery of mental health care

Mental health services depend both on efficacious drug and interpersonal interventions and strategies for financing, organizing, and delivering these services. In recent years, much attention has been devoted to approaches that seek to coordinate needed care and to provide it in the most cost-effective ways. Cost constraints encourage the substitution of alternative community treatments for expensive inpatient care and the identification of appropriate ways to link effectively the varying care components. The mechanism most commonly advocated is case management, but the concept is applied in diverse ways and has little agreed upon meaning and disparate outcomes. This paper discusses and evaluates concepts of case management and a variety of other systems interventions designed to reduce fragmentation. It also reviews approaches to managed care, including mental health capitation and utilization management. New organizational technologies are likely to change dramatically professional practices and standards and the future provision of mental health care.