Behavioral Health Network

In 2017, a network of Behavioral Health (BH), social service, and primary care providers teamed up with WakeMed Health and Hospitals in Raleigh, NC to build a network of high performing BH providers to improve access and care coordination for patients suffering from mental and chronic health conditions. In partnership with Blaze Advisors, the WakeMed Behavioral Health Network (WMBHN) set out to build a highly collaborative and integrative model of care that would improve disease detection, accelerate access to the right care/provider and improve patient engagement — to keep patients out of the ED and reducing readmissions.

In the years since its inception, WMBHN developed several high performing networks and collaborative partners. One such network is the Network for Advancing Behavioral Health (NABH), a preferred behavioral health referral network. 

The NABH does not directly provide services; that is the role of its individual members. The NABH coordinates the white space between levels of care, providers, specialties and even the patient and their clinical team. The NABH has the flexibility to deploy tools and programs at a “system of care” level difficult for any single provider or specialty to launch. Yet our primary role is one of “convener” and “translator:” bringing network experts together, empowered by clinical data, to identify pragmatic solutions to stubborn challenges.

Behavioral Health Network Services

The NABH is comprised of local and statewide behavioral health providers that collectively offer a full continuum of behavioral health services. In exchange for timely access to care, WakeMed Health and Hospitals sends referrals to a small group of preferred providers, alleviating long lengths of stay for the over 90,000 patients who present at WakeMed with a primary or co-occurring behavioral health condition. On the eve of accountable care and value-based purchasing, however, NABH leadership decided to form itself into a high-performance network. It supports these systemic solutions: 

• Early disease identification and intervention
• Risk stratification and pre-crisis mitigation
• Accelerated and coordinated access to primary and BH care
• Patient activation (starting treatment) and engagement (fidelity to care plan)
• Whole Person Care, including Social Determinant Obstacles to Health (SDOH)
• Using technology and innovation to improve communication and increase capacity

Today, the NABH works closely with primary care, medical and psychiatric hospitals, residential treatment facilities and social service organizations through our sister network, the Connected Community. Together, these organizations have made a significant and measurable impact:

• Increased early identification of clinical and medical conditions that, if left untreated, can confound wellness.
• Reduction in the use of unnecessary involuntary commitments by presenting structured aftercare programs as alternatives
• More appropriate and timely use of intensive inpatient resources by higher acuity/risk patients.
• Increased attendance to first and second appointments through team-based care and stigma reduction.
• Improved health resiliency through decreased avoidable 30-day readmissions to hospitals.

While the NABH continues to seek out and welcome any financial incentive(s) that supports our effort, all of the NABH members agree that our primary reason for working together is simply that it is the right thing to do.