Collaborative Care Model (CoCM)

Collaborative Care Model (CoCM) is an integrated care approach developed at the University of Washington to address common mental health conditions in medical settings, such as primary care. Behavioral health issues, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and alcohol or substance use disorders, are among the most prevalent and disabling health conditions worldwide. CoCM is based on effective chronic illness care principles and focuses on specific patient populations tracked in a registry to monitor treatment progress. The treatment plan emphasizes measurement-based approaches to ensure that patients' goals and clinical outcomes are achieved.

Collaborative Care Team

Team Structure

Patient
Behavioral Health Care Manager (BHCM)
Primary Care Provider (PCP)
Psychiatric Consultant

CoCM requires a team of providers. Trained primary care providers (PCPs) work with embedded behavioral health care managers (BHCMs) to provide evidence-based medication or psychosocial treatments. The PCP and BHCM are supported by a Psychiatric Consultant who meets regularly with the BHCM for Systematic Caseload Review (SCR), where they consult on patients and adjust treatment for those not improving as expected.

Collaborative Care Outcomes

Collaborative Care Model (CoCM) has been tested in over 90 randomized controlled trials, both in the United States and internationally, and is widely recognized as the integrated care approach with the most robust evidence base. This model leads to significantly better clinical outcomes, enhanced patient and provider satisfaction, improved functioning, and reduced healthcare costs.

Implementing Collaborative Care requires changes at multiple levels and represents a fundamentally new way of practicing medicine, but it is effective. Essentially, providers gain access to the resources needed to treat patients more effectively, and patients are twice as likely to experience improvement in significantly less time, averaging 86 days compared to 614 days in usual care.